Yesterdays in the Philippines

YESTERDAYS
IN THE

SI YENS

LIBRA**
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CAUFOftN*

SAN DIEGfe

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

How We Dressed fur $2.50. See page 16.

YESTERDAYS IN THE
PHILIPPINES

AN EX-RESIDENT OF MANILA

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1898

COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

THOW 01 RECTORY

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK

iN MEMORY OP
MY MOTHER

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION Page xiii

I

Leaving " God's Country " — Hong Kong — Crossing to Luzon— Manila
Bay — First View of the City— Earthquake Precautions— Balco-
nies and Window-gratings — The River Pasig — Promenade of the
Malecon— The Old City — The Puente de Espana— Population —
A Philippine Bed— The English Club— The Luneta— A Christmas
Dinner at the Club Page i

II

Shopping at the " Botica Inglesa " — The Chit System — Celebrating
New Year's Eve— Manila Cooking Arrangements — Floors and
Windows — Peculiarities of the Tram-car Service — Roosters Ev-
erywhere— Italian Opera— Philippine Music — The Mercury at 74°
and an Epidemic of " Grippe "—Fight Between a Bull and a Tiger
— A Sorry Fiasco— Carnival Sunday, Page 22

III

A Philippine Valet— The Three Days Chinese New Year — Marionettes
and Minstrels at Manila — Yankee Skippers — Furnishing a
Bungalow — Rats, Lizards, and Mosquitoes — A New Arrival —
Pony-races in Santa Mesa — Cigars and Cheroots — Servants
— Cool Mountain Breezes — House-snakes— Cost of Living— Holy
Week, Page 43

V1U CONTENTS

IV

An Up-country Excursion — Steaming up the River to the Lake —
Legend of the Chinaman and the Crocodile — Santa Cruz and
Pagsanjan — Dress of the Women — Mountain Gorges and River
Rapids— Church Processions — Cocoanut Rafts — A " Carromata"
Ride to Paquil — An Earthquake Lasting Forty-five Seconds —
Small-pox and other Diseases in the Philippines — The Manila
Fire Department— How Thatch Dealers Boom the Market— Cost
of Living Page bo

Visit of the Sagamore — Another Mountain Excursion — The Caves of
Montalvan— A Hundred-mile View— A Village School— A " Fi-
esta " at Obando — The Manila Fire-tree — A Move to the Seashore
— A Waterspout — Captain Tayler's Dilemma — A Trip Southward
— The Lake of Taal and its Volcano — Seven Hours of Poling — A
Night's Sleep in a Hen-coop, Page 87

VI

First Storm of the Rainy Season— Fourth of July— Chinese " Chow "
Dogs— Crullers and Pie and a Chinese Cook — A Red-letter Day
— The China- Japan War — Manila Newspapers— General Blanco
and the Archbishop — An American Fire-engine and its Lively
Trial — The Coming of the Typhoon — Violence of the Wind —
The Floods Next — Manila Monotony, Page 112

VII

A Series of Typhoons — A Chinese Feast-day — A Bank-holiday Excur-
sion— Lost in the Mist — Los Banos — The " Enchanted Lake " —
Six Dollars for a Human Life— A Religious Procession— Celebra-
tion of the Expulsion of the Chinese — Bicycle Races and Fire-
works, Page JJ7

CONTENTS IX

VIII

A Trip to the South— Contents of the " Puchero "— Romblon— Cebu,
the Southern Hemp-centre — Places Touched At — A Rich Indian
at Camiguin — Tall Trees — Primitive Hemp-cleaners — A New
Volcano — Mindanao Island — Moro Trophies — Iligan — Iloilo —
Back Again at Manila, Page 149

IX

Club-house Chaff— Christmas Customs and Ceremonies — New Year's
Calls — A Dance at the English Club— The Royal Exposition of
the Philippines — Fireworks on the King's Fete Day — Electric
Lights and the Natives — The Manila Observatory — A Hospitable
Governor — The Convent at Antipole, Page 173

Exacting Harbor Regulations — The Eleanor takes French Leave — Loss
of the Gravina — Something about the Native Ladies — Ways of
Native Servants — A Sculptor who was a Dentist — Across the
Bay to Orani— Children in Plenty— A Public Execution by the
Garrote, Page 195

XI

Lottery Chances and Mischances — An American Cigarette-making
Machine and its Fate— Closing up Business— How the Foreigner
Feels Toward Life in Manila — Why the English and Germans
Return— Restlessness among the Natives— Their Persecution —
Departure and Farewell, Page 213

CONCLUSION Page z3o

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Facing
jagt

How We Dressed for $2.50 Frontispiece

Our Office and the Punkah under which the Old Salts Sat for

Free Sea Breezes 8

Plaza de Cervantes, Foreign Business Quarter . .14

Puente de Espana. Manila's Main Highway Across the Pasig . 2o
The Busy Pasig, from the Puente de Espana .... 26

A Philippine Sleeping-machine 32

The English Club on the Banks of the Pasig .... 40
The Bull and Tiger Fight— Opening Exercises . . .46

Suburb of Santa Mesa 54

Our Destination was a Town Called Pagsanjan at the Foot of

a Range of Mountains 60

The Rapids in the Gorges of Pagsanjan 66

Cocoanut Rafts on the Pasig, Drifting down to Manila . . 72
The Little Native School under the Big Mango-tree . . 78

Calzada de San Miguel . . 84

A Native Village Up Country 90

A " Chow " Shop on a Street Corner 98

Puentes de Ayala, which Help two of Manila's Suburbs to Shake

Hands Across the Pasig 106

Calzada de San Sebastian 114

Xll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Facing
fage

Ploughing in the Rice-fields with the Carabao . . . 122
Types of True Filipinos Waiting to Call Themselves Americans. 130

On the Banks of the Enchanted Lake 138

In the Narrow Streets of Old Manila. A Procession . .144

A Citizen from the Interior 152

How the World's Supply of Manila Hemp is Cleaned . . 160

Moro Chiefs from Mindanao 168

Manila Fruit-girls in a Street-Corner Attitude . . .176

A Typical " Nipa " House 184

The Little Flower-girl at the Opera 192

Rapid Transit in the Suburbs of Manila 202

The Fourth of July, '95- Execution by the Garrote . . 210

Paseo de la Luneta 220

Captain Tayler, the Genial Skipper of the Esmeralda . . 226

Map of Philippines At End of Volume

INTRODUCTION

BY the victory of our fleet at Manila Bay, one
more of the world's side-tracked capitals has been
pulled from obscurity into main lines of prominence
and the average citizen is no longer left, as in days
gone by, to suppose that Manila is spelt with two 1's
and is floating around in the South Sea somewhere
between Fiji arid Patagonia. The Philippines have
been discovered, and the daily journals with their
cheap maps have at last located Spain's Havana in
the Far East. It is indeed curious that a city of
a third of a million people — capital of a group
of islands as large as New England, New York,
Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey, which have
long furnished the whole world with its entire sup-
ply of Manila hemp, which have exported some
160,000 tons of sugar in a single year and which to-
day produce as excellent tobacco as that coming from
the West Indies — it is curious, I say, that a city of
this size should have gone so long unnoticed and mis-
spelt. But such has been the case, and until Admiral

Dewey fired the shots that made Manila heard round

xiii

XIV INTRODUCTION

the world, the people of these United States — with
but few exceptions — lived and died without knowing
where the stuff in their clothes-lines came from.

Now that the Philippines are ours, do we want
them ? Can we run them ? Are they the long-looked-
for El Dorado which those who have never been
there suppose ? To all of which questions — even at
the risk of being called unpatriotic — I am inclined to
answer, No.

Do we want them? Do we want a group of 1,400
islands, nearly 8,000 miles from our Western shores,
sweltering in the tropics, swept with typhoons and
shaken with earthquakes? Do we want to under-
take the responsibility of protecting those islands
from the powers in Europe or the East, and of stand-
ing sponsor for the nearly 8,000,000 native inhabitants
that speak a score of different tongues and live on
anything from rice to stewed grasshoppers ? Do we
want the task of civilizing this race, of opening up
the jungle, of setting up officials in frontier, out-of-
the-way towns who won't have been there a month
before they will wish to return ?

Do we want them? No. Why? Because we have
got enough to look after at home. Because — unlike
the Englishman or the German who, early realizing
that his country is too small to support him, grows
up with the feeling that he must relieve the burden

INTRODUCTION XV

by going to the uttermost parts of the sea — our
young men have room enough at home in which to
exert their best energies without going eight or
eleven thousand miles across land and water to
tropic islands in the Far East.

Can we run them ? The Philippines are hard ma-
terial with which to make our first colonial experi-
ment, and seem to demand a different sort of treat-
ment from that which our national policy favors or
has had experience in giving. Besides the peaceable
natives occupying the accessible towns, the interiors
of many of the islands are filled with aboriginal
savages who have never even recognized the rule of
Spain — who have never even heard of Spain, and who
still think they are possessors of the soil. Even on
the coast itself are tribes of savages who are almost
as ignorant as their brethren in the interior, and only
thirty miles from Manila are races of dwarfs that go
without clothes, wear knee-bracelets of horsehair,
and respect nothing save the jungle in which they
live. To the north are the Igorrotes, to the south
the Moros, and in between, scores of wild tribes that
are ready to dispute possession. And is the United
States prepared to maintain the forces and carry on
the military operations in the fever-stricken jungles
necessary in the march of progress to exterminate or
civilize such races ? Have we, like England for in-

XVI INTKODtJCTION

stance, the class of troops who could undertake that
sort of work, and do we feel called upon to do it,
when the same expenditure at home would go so
much further? The Philippines must be run under
a despotic though kindly form of government, sup-
ported by arms and armor-clads, and to deal with the
perplexing questions and perplexing difficulties that
arise, needs knowledge gained by experience, by hav-
ing dealt with other such problems before.

Are the Philippines an El Dorado ? Like Borneo,
like Java and the Spice Islands, the Philippines are
rich in natural resources, but their capacity to yield
more than the ordinary remuneration to labor I much
question. Leaving aside the question of gold and
coal, in the working of which, so far, more money has
been put into the ground than has ever been taken
out, the great crops in these islands are sugar, hemp,
and tobacco. The sugar crop, to be sure, has the
possibilities that it has anywhere, where the soil is
rich and conditions favorable. The tobacco industry
has perhaps more possibilities, and might be made
a close rival to that in Cuba. But the hemp crop is
limited by the world's needs, and as those needs are
just so much each year, there is no object in increas-
ing a supply which up to date has been adequate.
There are foreigners in the Philippines, who have
been there for years, who have controlled the exports

INTRODUCTION XV11

of sugar or hemp or tobacco, who have made their
living, and who from having been longer on the
ground should be the first to improve the oppor-
tunities that may come with the downfall of Spanish
rule. There are some things which the United States
can send to the Philippines cheaper than the Conti-
nental manufacturers, but not many. She can send
flour and some kinds of machinery, she can put in
electric plants, she can build railways, but at present
she can't produce the cheap implements, and the nec-
essaries required by the great bulk of poor natives at
the low price which England and Germany can.

The Philippines are not an El Dorado simply be-
cause for the first time they have been brought to our
notice. They should not yield more than the ordi-
nary return to labor, and the question is, does the
average American want to live in a distant land, cut
off from friends and a civilized climate, only to get
the ordinary return for his efforts? To which, even
though of course there is much to be said on the
other side, I would answer, No. We have gone to
war, remembering the Maine, to free Cuba, and at the
first blow have taken another group of islands — a
Cuba in the East — to deal with. I have not the
space here to discuss the solution of the problem,
but, for my part, I should like to see England interest-
ed in buying back an archipelago which she formerly

XV111 INTRODUCTION

held for ransom, leaving us perhaps a coaling port,
and opening up the country to such as chose to go
there. Then, with someone else to shoulder the
burden of government and protection, we should still
have all the opportunities for proving whether or not
the islands were the El Dorado dreamed of in our
clubs or counting-rooms.

At the close of 1893, 1 went to Manila for Messrs.
Henry W. Peabody & Co., of Boston and New York,
in the interest of their hemp business, and, associated
with Mr. A. H. Band, remained there for two years.
We two were the representatives of the only Ameri-
can house doing business in the Philippines, and
made up practically fifty per cent, of the American
business colony in Manila. The years from 1894 to
1896 were peculiarly peaceful with the quiet coming
before the storm, and we were fortunate enough to
be able to make many excursions and go into many
parts of the island that later would have been dan-
gerous. But as the short term of our service drew
to a close, rumors of trouble began to circulate. The
natives had long suffered from the demands made by
the Church and the tax-gatherer, and there was a
feeling that they might again attempt to throw off the
Spanish yoke, as they attempted, without success,
some years before. It was at this period that Messrs.
Peabody & Co. decided it would be to their unques-

INTRODUCTION XIX

tionable advantage to retire from the islands and to
place their business in the hands of an English firm,
long established on the ground, and well equipped
with men who, unlike ourselves, looked forward to
passing the rest of their days in the Philippines,.
And the move was a good one, for no sooner had we
left Manila than revolution broke out. The Spanish
troops were at the south, and that mysterious native
brotherhood of the Katipunan called its members to
attack the capital. A massacre was planned, but the
right leaders were lacking and the attempt failed.
The troops were recalled, guards doubled, draw-
bridges into old Manila pulled up nightly, arrests
and executions made. As is well known, one hun-
dred suspects were crowded into that old dungeon on
the river, just at the corner of the city wall, and be-
cause it came on to rain at night-fall, an officer shut
down the trap-door leading to the prisoners' cells to
keep out the water. But it also kept out the air.
and next morning sixty out of the one hundred per-
sons were suffocated. Then Manila had her Black
Hole. Later, other suspects were stood on the curb-
ing that surrounds the Luneta and were shot down
while the big artillery band discoursed patriotic music
to the crowds that thronged the promenade. And
from then until Admiral Dewey silenced the guns at
Cavite and sunk the Spanish ships that used to swing

XX INTRODUCTION

peacefully at anchor off the breakwater, the Span-
iards had their hands full with a revolution brought
on by their own rotten system of government.

If in place of the more systematic narratives of
description, the more serious presentations of sta-
tistics, or the more exciting accounts of the bloody
months of the revolution and the wonderful victory
of our gallant fleet, which are to be looked for from
other sources, the reader cares to get some idea of
casual life in Manila, by accepting the rather collo-
quial chronicle of an ex-resident that follows, I shall
have made some little return to islands that robbed
me of little else than two years of a more hurried
existence in State Street or Broadway.

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

Leaving " God's Country " — Hong Kong — Crossing to Luzon — Manila
Bay — First View of the City— Earthquake Precautions — Balco-
nies and Window-Gratings— The River Pasig— Promenade of the
Malecon— The Old City — The Puente de Espana— Population —
A Philippine Bed— The English Club— The Luneta— A Christmas
Dinner at the Club.

"I WOULDN'T give much for your chances of coming
back unboxed," said the Captain to me, as the China
steamed out from the Golden Gate on the twenty-five
day voyage to Hong Kong via Honolulu and Yoko-
hama.

" That's God's country we're leaving behind, sure
enough," said he, " and you'll find it out after a week
or two in the Philippines. There's Howe came back
with us last trip from there ; almost shuffled off on the
way. Spent half a year in Manila with smallpox,
fever, snakes, typhoons, and earthquakes, and had to
be carried aboard ship at Hong Kong and off at
'Frisco. Guess he's about done for all right."

And as Howe happened to be the unfortunate

2 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

whose place in Manila 1 was going to take, you know,
I heeded the skipper's advice and looked with more
fervor on God's country than I had for some days.
For it was a dusty trip across country from Boston
on the Pacific express ; and because babies are my pet
aversion every mother's son of them aboard the train
was quartered in my car — three families moving West
to grow up with the country, and all of them occupy-
ing the three sections nearest mine. I got so weary
of the five cooing, coughing, crying " clouds-of-glory-
trailers," that it seemed a relief at San Francisco to
wash off the dust of the Middle West and get aboard
the P. M. S. Company's steamer China bound for the
far East.

But the Captain, like the whistle, was somewhat of
a blower, and liked to make me and the missionaries
aboard feel we were leaving behind all that was de-
sirable. And how he bothered the twoscore or
more of them bound for the up-river ports of Middle
China ! When, after leaving the Sandwich Islands,
the voyage had proceeded far enough for everybody
on the passenger-list to get fairly well acquainted
with his neighbors, these spreaders of the gospel fol-
lowed the custom established by their predecessors
and made plans for a Sunday missionary service.
Without so much as asking leave of the skipper, they
posted in the companion-way the following notice :

YESTEBDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

Service in the Saloon,
Sunday, 10 A.M.

Rev. X. Y. Z. Smith, of Wang-
kiang, China, will speak on
mission work on the Upper
Yangtse.

All are invited.

But they counted without their host. The Cap-
tain had never schooled himself to look on mission-
aries with favor, and he accordingly made arrange-
ments to cross the meridian where the circle of time
changes and a day is dropped early on Sunday
morning. He calculated to a nicety, and as the pas-
sengers came down to Sabbath breakfast they saw
posted below the other notice, in big letters, the
significant words :

Sunday, Nov. 29th.
Ship crosses ISOth meridian

9.30 A.M.,
After which it will be Monday.

4 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

In Yokohama and Hong Kong the wiseacres were
free in saying they wouldn't be found dead in Ma-
nila or the Philippines for anything. They had
never been there, but knew all about it, and seemed
ready to wave any one bound thither a sort of
never'11-see-you-again farewell that was most affect-
ing. It is these very people that have made Manila
the side-tracked capital that it is and have scared off
globe-trotters from making it a visit on their way to
the Straits of Malacca and India.

Hong Kong, the end of the China's outward run,
bursts into view after a narrow gateway, between
inhospitable cliffs, lets the steamer into a great bay
which is the centre of admiration for bleak mountain-
ranges. The city, with its epidemic of arcaded bal-
conies, lies along the water to the left and goes step-
ping up the steep slopes to the peak behind, on
whose summit the signal-flags announce our arrival.
The China has scarcely a chance to come to an-
chor in peace before a storm of sampans bite her
sides like mosquitoes, and hundreds of Chinawomen
come hustling up to secure your trade, while their
lazy husbands stay below and smoke.

Hong Kong rather feels as if it were the " central
exchange " for the Far East, and from the looks of
things I judge it is. The great bay is full of deep-
water ships, the quays teem with life, and the streets

YESTEKDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 5

are full of quiet bustle. It is quite enough to give
one heart disease to shin up the hills to the res-
idence part of the town, and it took me some time
to find breath enough to tell the Spanish Consul I
wanted him to vise my passport to Manila.

This interesting stronghold of Old England in the
East is fertile in descriptive matter by the whole-
sale, but I can't rob my friends in the Philippines of
more space than enough to chronicle the doings of a
Chinese tailor who made me up my first suit of thin
tweeds. Ripping off the broad margin to the Hong
Kong Daily Press, he stood me on a box, took my
measure with his strip of paper, making sundry little
tears along its length, according as it represented
length of sleeve or breadth of chest, and sent me off
with a placid "Me makee allee same plopper tree
day ; no fittee no takee." And I'm bound to say that
the thin suits Tak Cheong built for $6 apiece, from
nothing but the piece of paper full of tears, fit to far
greater perfection than the system of measurement
would seem to have warranted.

The voyage from Hong Kong to Manila, 700
miles to the southeast, is one of the worst short
ocean-crossings in existence, and the Esmeralda,
Captain Tayler, as she went aslant the seas rolling
down from Japan, in front of the northeast mon-
soon, developed such a corkscrew motion that I

6 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

fear it will take a return trip against the other
monsoon to untwist the feelings of her passengers.
On the morning of the second day, however, the
yawing ceased ; the skipper said we were under the
lee of Luzon, the largest and most northern island of
the Philippines, and not long after the high moun-
tains of the shore -range loomed up off the port
bow. From then on our chunky craft of 1,000 tons
steamed closer to the coast and turned headland after
headland as she poked south through schools of fly-
ing-fish and porpoises.

By afternoon the light-house onCorregidor appeared,
and with a big sweep to the left the Esmeralda entered
the Boca Chica, or narrow mouth to Manila Bay. On
the left, the coast mountains sloped steeply up for
some 5,000 feet, while on the right the island of
Corregidor, with its more moderate altitude, stood
planted in the twelve-mile opening to worry the tides
that swept in and out from the China Sea. Beyond
lay the Boca Grande, or wide mouth used by ships
coming from the south or going thither, and still
beyond again rose the lower mountains of the south
coast. In front the Bay opened with a grand sweep
right and left, till the shore was lost in waves of warm
air, and only the dim blue of distant mountains showed
where the opposite perimeter of the great circle might
be located.

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 7

It was twenty-seven miles across the bay, and the
sun had set with a wealth of color in the opening
behind us before we came to anchor amid a fleet of
ships and steamers off a low-lying shore that showed
many lights in long rows. Next morning Manila lay
visibly before us, but failed to convey much idea of
its size, from the fact that it stretched far back on the
low land, thus permitting the eye to see only the
front line of buildings and a few taller and more
distant church-steeples. Not far in the background
rose a high range of velvet-like looking mountains
whose tops aspired to show themselves above the
clouds, and on the right and left stretched flanking
ranges of lower altitude.

In due season my colleague came off to the anchor-
age in a small launch, and we were soon steaming
back up a narrow river thickly fringed with small
ships, steamers, houses, quays, and people. It was
piping hot at the low custom-house on the quay.
Panting carabao — the oxen of the East — tried to find
shade under a parcel of bamboos, shaggy goats nosed
about for stray bits of crude sugar dropped from bags
being discharged by coolies, piles of machinery were
lying around promiscuously dumped into the deep
mud of the outyards, natives with bared backs gleam-
ing in the sun were lugging hemp or prying open
boxes, and under-officials with sharp rods were probing

8 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

flour-sacks in the search for contraband. Spanish
officials in full uniform, smoking cigarettes, playing
chess, and fanning themselves in their comfortable
seats in bent-wood rocking-chairs, were interrupted by
our arrival, and made one boil within as they upset
the baggage and searched for smuggled dollars.

Here, then, was the anti-climax to the long journey
of forty days from Boston, and those were the moments
in which to realize the meaning of the expression
made by the Captain of the China as she left the
Golden Gate : " Take a last look, for you're leaving
behind God's country."

Before arrival, while yet the Esmeralda was steam-
ing down the coast, I was resolved to refrain from
judging Manila by first impressions. I felt primed
for anything, and was bound to be neither surprised
nor disappointed. At first, I may admit, my chin
and collar drooped, but on meeting with my new asso-
ciate I gave them a mental starching and stepped
with courage into the rickety barouche that, drawn
by two small and bony ponies, took us to the office of
Henry W. Peabody & Co., the only American house
in the Philippines.

And having entered the two upstair rooms, that
looked out over the little Plaza de Cervantes, I was in-
troduced to bamboo chairs, a quartette of desks, and
half a dozen office-boys, who were rudely awakened

i

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 9

from their morning's slumber by the scuffle of my
heavy boots on the broad, black planks of the shining-
floors. Across the larger room, suspended from the
ceiling, hung the big " punka," which seems to form
a most important article of furniture in every tropical
establishment. On my arrival the boy who pulled the
string got down to work, and amid the sea-breezes
that blew the morning's mail about, business of the
day began.

The first thing I noticed was that cloth instead of
plaster formed the walls and ceilings, and seemed far
less likely than the mixture of lime and water to fall
into baby's crib or onto the dinner-table during those
terrestrial or celestial exhibitions for which Manila is
famous. For the Philippines are said to be the
cradle of earthquake and typhoon, and in buildings,
everywhere, construction seems to conform to the
requirements of these much - respected "movers."
Tiles on roofs, they say, are now forbidden, since the
passers-by below are not willing to wear brass hel-
mets or carry steel umbrellas to ward off a shower of
those missiles started by a heavy shake. Galvanized
iron is used instead, and, while detracting from the
picturesque, has added to the security of households
who once used to be rudely awakened from their
slumbers by the extra weight of tile bedspreads.

And Manila houses. Down in the town, outside

10 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

the city walls, the regular, or rather irregular, Spanish
type prevails, and nature, in her nervousness, seems
to have done much in dispensing with lines horizontal
and perpendicular. The buildings all have an ap-
pearance of feebleness and senility, and look as if
a good blow or a heavy shake would lay them flat.
But in the old city, behind the fortifications, are heavy
buttressed buildings of by-gone days, built when it was
thought that earthquakes respected thick walls rather
than thin, and the sturdy buttresses so occupy the
narrow sidewalks that pedestrians must travel single
file. The Spanish — so it seems — rejoice to huddle
together in these gloomy houses of Manila proper,
but the rich natives, half-castes, and foreigners all
prefer the newer villas outside the narrow streets and
musty walls ; and just as much as the Anglo-Saxon
likes to place a grass-plot or a garden between him
and the thoroughfare in front of his residence, so
does the Spaniard seek to hug close to the street, and
even builds his house to overhang the sidewalk. Save
for carriages and dogs, the lower floors of city houses
are generally deserted, and, on account of fevers that
hang about in the mists of the low-ground, everyone
takes to living on the upper story. Balconies, which
are so elaborate that they carry the whole upper part
of the house out over the sidewalk, are a conspicuous
feature in all the buildings of older construction, and

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 11

with their engaging overhang afford opportunities for
leaning out to talk with passers-by below, or a con-
venient vantage-ground from which to throw the
waste water from wash-basins. Huge window-gratings
thrust themselves forward from the walls of the lower
story, and are often big enough to permit dogs and
servants to sit in them and watch the pedestrians,
who almost have to leave the sidewalk to get around
these great cages.

It may be just as well, before going farther, to say
something about this town that is sarcastically labelled
"Pearl of the Orient" and "Venice of the Far East"
by poets who have only seen the oyster-shell windows
or back doors on the Pasig on the cover-labels of
cigar-boxes. It seems big enough to supply me with
the pianos and provisions which kind friends sug-
gested I bring out with me in case of need, and the
main street, Escolta, is as busy with life and as well
fringed with shops as a Washington street or a
Broadway.

Spanish, of course, is the court and commercial lan-
guage and, except among the uneducated natives who
have a lingo of their own or among the few members
of the Anglo-Saxon colony — it has a monopoly every-
where. No one can really get on without it, and even
the Chinese come in with their peculiar pidgin variety.

The city squats around its old friend the river

12 YESTEKDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

Pasig, and shakes hands with itself in the several
bridges that bind one side to the other. On the right
bank of the river, coming in from the bay and passing
up by the breakwater, lies the old walled town of
Manila proper, whose weedy moats, ponderous draw-
bridges, and heavy gates suggest a troubled past. Old
Manila may be figured as a triangle, a mile on a side,
and the dingy walls seem, as it were, to herd in a
drove of church-steeples, schools, houses, and streets.
The river is the boundary on the north, and the wall
at that side but takes up the quay which runs in from
the breakwater and carries it up to the Puente de
Espafia, the first bridge that has courage enough to
span the yellow stream.

The front wall runs a mile to the south along the
bay front, starting at the river in the old fort and bat-
tery that look down on the berth where the Esme-
ralda lies, and is separated from the beach only by an
old moat and the promenade of the Malecon, which,
also beginning at the river, runs to an open plaza
called the Luneta, a mile up the beach. The east
wall takes up the business at that point, and wobbles
off at an angle again till it brings up at the river for-
tifications, just near where the Puente de EspaSa, al-
ready spoken of, carries all the traffic across the Pasig.
Thus the old city is cooped up like pool-balls, in a tri-
angle three miles around, and the walls do as much in

YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 13

keeping out the wind as they do in keeping in the
various unsavory odors that come from people who
like garlic and don't take baths. Here is the cathe-
dral— a fine old church that cost a million of money
and was widowed of its steeple in the earthquakes of
the '80s — and besides a lot of smaller churches are
convent schools, the city hall, army barracks, and a
raft of private residences.

Opposite Old Manila, on the other bank, lies the
business section, with the big quays lined with steam-
ers and alive with movement. The custom-house
and the foreign business community are close by the
river-side, while in back are hundreds of narrow
streets, storehouses, and shops that go to make up the
stamping ground of the Chinese who control so large
a part of the provincial trade.

Everything centres at the foot of the Puente de
Espana, which pours its perspiring flood into the nar-
row lane of the Escolta, and people, carriages, tram-
cars, and dust all sail in here from north, east, south,
and west. As on the other side, the busy part of the
section runs a mile up and down the river and a mile
back from it, while out or up beyond come the earlier
residential suburbs. In Old Manila, the Church seems
to rule, but on this side the Pasig the State makes
itself felt, from the custom-house to the governor's
palace — a couple of miles up-stream.

14 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

As to population, Manila, in the larger sense, may
hold 350,000 souls, besides a few dogs. Of the lot,
call 50,000 Chinese, 5,000 Spaniards, 150 Germans,
90 English, and 4 Americans. The rest are natives or
half-castes of the Malay type, whose blood runs in all
mixtures of Chinese, Spanish, and what-not propor-
tions, and whose Chinese eyes, flat noses, and high
cheek-bones are queer accompaniments to their Span-
ish accents. Thus the majority of the souls in
Manila — like the dogs — are mongrels, or mestizos, as
the word is, and the saying goes that happy is the
man who knows his own father.

I spent my first night in Manila at the Spanish
Hotel El Oriente, and it was here that I became
acquainted with that peculiar institution, the Philip-
pine bed. And to the newly arrived traveller its
peculiar rig and construction make it command a
good deal of interest, if not respect. It is a four-
poster, with the posts extending high enough to sup-
port a light roof, from whose eaves hang copious folds
of deep lace. The bed-frame is strung tightly across
with regular chair-bottom cane, and the only other
fittings are a piece of straw matting spread over the
cane, a pillow, and a surrounding wall of mosquito-
netting that drops down from the roof and is tucked
in under the matting. How to get into one of these
cages was the first question that presented itself, and

CX

3

YESTEKDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 15

what to do with myself after I got in was the second.
It took at least half an hour to make up my mind as
to the proper mode of entrance, when I was for the
first time alone with this Philippine curiosity, and I
couldn't make out whether it was proper to get in
through the roof or the bottom or the side. After
finally pulling away the netting, I found the hard
cane bottom about as soft as the teak floor, and looked
in vain for blankets, sheets, and mattresses. In fact,
it seems as if I had gotten into an unfurnished house,
and the more I thought aboub it the longer I stayed
awake. At last I cut my way out of the peculiar
arrangement, dressed, and spent the decidedly cool
night in a long cane chair, preferring not to experi-
ment further with the sleeping-machine until I found
out how it worked.

Next morning my breakfast was brought up by a
native boy, and consisted of a cup of thick chocolate,
a clammy roll, and a sort of seed-cake without any
hole in it. How to drink the chocolate, which was
as thick as molasses, seemed the chief question, but I
rightly concluded that the seed-cake was put there
to sop it out of the cup, after the fashion of blotting-
paper. Fortified with this peculiar combination, I
started on my second business day by trying to re-
member in what direction the office lay, and wandered
cityward through busy streets, often bordered with

16 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

arcaded sidewalks, which were further shaded from
the sun by canvas curtains.

After beginning the morning by ordering a dozen
suits of white sheeting from a native tailor — price
$2.50 apiece — I was introduced to the members of the
English Club, and began to feel more at home
stretched out in one of the long chairs in the cool
library. It seems that the club affords shelter and
refreshment to its fourscore members at two widely
separated points of the compass, one just on the banks
of the Pasig River, where its waters, slouching down
from the big lake at the foot of the mountains, are
first introduced to the outlying suburbs of the city,
and the other in the heart of the business section.
The same set of native servants do for both depart-
ments, since no one stays uptown during the middle
of the day and no one downtown after business hours.
As a result, on week-days, after the light breakfast of
the early morning is over at the uptown building, the
staff of waiters and assistants hurry downtown in the
tram-cars and make ready for the noon meal at the
other structure, returning home to the suburbs in time
to officiate at dinner.

At the downtown club is the 6,000-volume library,
and after the noonday tiffin it is always customary to
stretch out in one of the long bamboo chairs and read
one's self to sleep. This is indeed a land where lazi-

17

ness becomes second nature. If you want a book or
paper on the table, and they lie more than a yard or
two from where you are located, it is not policy to
reach for them. O, no ! You ring a bell twice as far
off, take a nap while the boy comes from a distance,
and wake up to find him handing you them with a
graceful " Aqui, Senor ! " In fact, I have even just
now met an English fellow who, they tell me, took a
barber with him on a recent trip to the southern
provinces, to look after his scanty beard that was
composed of no more than three or four dozen hairs,
each of which grew one-eighth of an inch quarterly.
On the day before Christmas one of the guest-rooms
at the uptown club was vacated, and I moved in. The
building is about two and a half miles out of the city,
and its broad balcony, shaded by luxuriant palms and
other tropical trees, almost overhangs the main river
that splits Manila in two. The view from this tropical
piazza is most peaceful. Opposite lie the rice-fields,
with a cluster of native huts surrounding an old
church, while, blue in the distance, sleeps a range of
low mountains. To the left the river winds back up-
country and soon loses itself in many turns among
the foothills that later grow into the more adult
uplifts on the Pacific Coast, while to the right it
turns a sharp corner and slides down between broken
rows of native huts and more elaborate bungalows.

18 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

The club-house is long, low, and rambling. The
reading, writing, and music rooms front on the river,
and the glossy hard-wood floors, hand-hewn out of
solid trees, seem to suggest music and coolness. It
is possible to reach the city by jumping into a native
boat at the portico on the river bank, or to go by one
of the two-wheel gigs, called carromatas, waiting at
the front gate, or to walk a block and take the
tram-car which jogs down through the busy high-
road.

It is very difficult to absorb the points of so large
a place at one's first introduction, so I won't go far-
ther now than to speak of that far-famed seaside
promenade called the Luneta, where society takes its
airing after the heat of the day is over.

Imagine an elliptical plaza, about a thousand feet
long, situated just above the low beach which borders
the Bay, and looking over toward the China Sea. Run-
ning around its edge is a broad roadway, bounded on
one side by the sea-wall, and on the other by the
green fields and bamboo-trees of the parade-grounds.
In the centre of the raised ellipse is the band-stand,
and on every afternoon, from six to eight, all Manila
come here to feel the breeze, hear the music, and see
their neighbors. Hundreds of carriages line the
roadways, and mounted police keep them in proper
file. The movement is from right to left, and only

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 19

the Archbishop and the Governor-General are allowed
to drive in the opposite direction.

The gentler element, in order not to encourage a
flow of perspiration that may melt off their complex-
ions, take to carriages, but the sterner sex prefer to
walk up and down, crowd around the band-stand, or
sit along the edge of the curbing in chairs rented for
a couple of coppers. Directly in front lies the great
Bay, with the sun going down in the Boca Chica,
between the hardly visible island of Corregidor and
the main land, thirty miles away. To the rear
stretches the parade-ground, backed up by clumps of
bamboos and the distant mountains beyond. To the
right lie the corner batteries and walls of Old Manila,
and to the left the attractive suburb of Ermita, with
the stretch of shore running along toward the naval
station of Cavite, eleven miles away. To take a
chair, watch the people walking to and fro, and see
the endless stream of smart turn-outs passing in slow
procession; to hear a band of fifty pieces render
popular and classic music with the spirit of a Sousa
or a Beeves, is to doubt that you are in a capital
8,000 miles from Paris and 11,000 miles from New
York. Footmen with tall hats, in spotless white
uniforms, grace the box-seats of the low-built victorias,
while tastefully dressed Spanish women or wealthy
half-castes recline against the soft cushions and take

20 YESTEKDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

for granted the admiration of those walking up and
down the mall.

The splendidly trained artillery-band, composed
entirely of natives, but conducted by a Spaniard, plays
half a dozen selections each evening, and here is a
treat that one can have every afternoon of the year,
free of charge. There are no snow-drifts or cold
winds to mar the performance, and, except during the
showers and winds of the rainy season, it goes on
without interruption.

After the music is over the carriages rush off in
every direction, behind smart-stepping little ponies
that get over the ground at a tremendous pace, and
the dinner-hour is late enough not to rob one of
those pleasant hours at just about sunset. There
are no horses in Manila — all ponies, and some of
them are so small as to be actually insignificant.
They are tremendously tough little beasts, however,
and stand more heat, work, and beating than most
horses of twice their size.

Our Christmas dinner at the club has just ended,
and from the bill of fare one would never suspect
he was not at the Waldorf or the Parker House.
Long punkas swung to and fro over the big tables,
small serving boys in bare feet rushed hither and
thither with meat and drink, corks popped, the smart
breeze blew jokes about, and everyone unbent.

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 21

Soups, fish, joints, entrees, removes, hors-d'oeuvres,
mince-pies, plum-puddings, and all the delicacies to
be found in cooler climes had their turn, as did a
variety of liquid courses. Singing, speeches, and
music followed the more material things, and every-
one was requested to take some part in the perform-
ance. By the time the show was over the piano was
dead-beat and everybody hoarse from singing by the
wrong method.

n

Shopping at the " Botica Inglesa " — The Chit System — Celebrating
New Year's Eve — Manila Cooking Arrangements — Floors and
Windows — Peculiarities of the Tram-car Service — Roosters Ev-
erywhere— Italian Opera— Philippine Music — The Mercury at 74°
and an Epidemic of " Grippe " — Fight Between a Bull and a Tiger
— A Sorry Fiasco— Carnival Sunday.

January 7th.

MY third Sunday in Manila is a cool breezy day,
with fresh winds blowing down from the mountains.
The weather has lately been as temperate as one
could wish, and has corresponded to some of our soft
spring conditions. From noon until three o'clock
has usually seemed warm, but the mornings have
made walking pleasant, the afternoons have given op-
portunities for tennis, and the evenings have hinted
that an overcoat would not be amiss. One could
hardly ask for any more comfortable place to live in
than Manila as it stands to-day, and although sani-
tary appliances are most primitive, the city seems to
be healthy and without noisome pestilence.

During the holiday season, just over, foreign busi-
ness has been suspended and everyone socially in-
clined. Shopping has been in vogue, and on one of

22

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 23

my expeditions for photographic materials I was in-
troduced to the " Botica Inglesa," or English chem-
ist's shop, which seems to be the largest variety-store
in town. Here it is possible to buy anything from a
glass of soda to a full-fledged lawn-mower, including
all the intermediates that reach from tooth-brushes
to photographic cameras.

And speaking of shopping brings me to the " chit "
system, which has been such a curse to the Far East.
In making purchases, no one pays cash for anything,
since the heavy Mexican dollars — which are the only
currency of the islands — are too heavy to lug around
in the thin suits made of white sheeting. One simply
signs an " I. O. U." for the amount of the bill in any
shop that he may choose to patronize, and thinks no
more about it till at the end of the month all the
"chits" which bear his name are sent around for
collection.

Result: one never feels as if he were spending
anything until the first day of the incoming month
ushers in a host of these big or little reminders. If
your chits at one single shop run into large amounts,
the collector generally brings along with him a coolie
or a wheelbarrow with which to lug away the weight
of dollars that you pour into his hands, and when
two or three collectors come in together the office
reminds one of a money-'changer's. Counterfeit

24 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

money is so prevalent that one after the other of
your callers bites the silver or drops it on the floor
to detect lead, and to listen to the resulting sound is
not to feel complimented by their opinion of your
integrity. So it goes, many of the shop-keepers
being swindled out of their dues by debtors who
choose to skip off rather than to pay, and waking up
at the end of the month to find their supposed profits
existing only in the chits whose signers have skedad-
dled to Hong Kong or Singapore.

New Year's Eve was celebrated with due hilarity
and elaborate provisions. The club bill of fare was
remarkable, and when it is realized there are no stoves
in Manila, the wonder is that the cooking is so com-
plex. A Manila stove is no more nor less than a
good-sized earthen jar, shaped something like an old
shoe. The vamp of the shoe represents the hearth ;
the opening in front, the place for putting in the
small sticks of wood ; and the enclosing upper, the
rim on which rests the single big pot or kettle. In
a well-regulated kitchen, there may be a dozen of
these stoves, one for each course, and their cost being
only a peseta, it is a simple matter to keep a few
extra ones on hand in the bread-closet. And so, as
one goes through the streets where native huts pre-
dominate, he sees a family meal being cooked in sec-
tions, and is forced to admire the complexity of the

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 25

greasy dishes that are evolved from so simple a con-
trivance.

As the Manila cooking arrangements are rude, so
I suspect are the pantry's dish- washing opportunities.
I really should hesitate to enter even our club-kitchen,
for. certain dim suggestions which are conveyed to the
senses from spoons and forks, and certain plate sur-
faces that would calm troubled waters if hung from a
ship's side, all hint at unappetizing sights. All in
all, the less one sees of native cooking, in transitu, the
greater will one's appetite be.

I had expected an early introduction to earth-
quakes, but none have occurred so far, and I am
almost tempted to get reckless. Soon after my arrival
I was inclined to put my chemical bottles in a box of
sawdust, empty part of the water out of my pitcher,
and pack my watch in cotton- wool in anticipation of
some nocturnal disturbance. For the old stagers who
saw the city fall to pieces back in the '80's deem it
their duty to alarm the new arrival, and almost turn
pale when a heavy dray rolls by over the cobblestones
in the street near the club, or make ready to fly out-
of-doors at the first suspicion of vibration.

A word or two more about the floors in Manila
houses. I don't suppose there is a soft-wood tree in
the islands, and as a result one sees some very inter-
esting hard- wood productions. The floors come under

26 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

this category. Bough-hewn as they are — out of huge
hand-sawed hard- wood planks — they are models. By
certain processes of polishing with banana leaves and
greasy rags, they are made to shine like genius itself,
and give such a clean, cool air to the houses that one
is compelled to regard them with admiration. In fact,
there is a certain charm in Manila about many speci-
mens of hand-work that one encounters everywhere.
The stilted regularities — as our good professor used
to say — of machine-made articles are frequently con-
spicuous by their absence, and instead one sees the
inequalities, the lack of exact repetition, the infor-
mality of lines that are not just perpendicular or
horizontal, all of which make up the charm of work
that is handmade, that reflects the movements of a
living arm and mind rather than those of a wheel or
a lever.

The curious windows that are everywhere are
likewise instructive. Like the blinds, they slide in
grooves on the railings of the balconies, and serve to
shut out the weather from the interior. They consist
of frames containing a multitude of small lattice-
work squares, into which are placed thin, flat, trans-
lucent sea-shells which admit light, but are not look-
throughable. We have all heard of shell-roads, but
never of shell-windows, and one misses the presence of
glass until he has got accustomed to a Manila house,

YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 27

whose sliding sides are one vast window that is rarely
closed.

Manila streets, outside of the city proper, are
smooth, hard, and well shaded by the arching bam-
boos. They are already proving attractive to the bi-
cycle, which, though very expensive out here at the
antipodes, is growing in favor, especially among the
wealthier half-castes, or mestizos.

Tram-car service is slow, but pretty generally good.
The car is a thing by itself, as is the one lean pony
that pulls it. It takes one man to drive and one to
work the whip, and if the wind blows too hard, ser-
vice is generally suspended. The conductor carries
a small valise suspended from his neck, and whistles
through his lips " up-hill " to stop, and " down-hill"
as the starting-sign. The usual notice, " Smoking al-
lowed on the three rear seats only," is absent, for
everyone smokes, even to the conductor, who gener-
ally drops the ash off a 15-for-a-cent cigarette into
your lap as he hands you a receipt for your dos
centavos. The chief rule of the road says :

" This car has seats for twelve persons, and places
for eight on each platform. Passengers are requested
to stand in equal numbers only on both platforms, to
prevent derailment."

And so if there are four " fares " on the front and
six on the back platform, somebody has to stumble

28 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

forward to equalize the weight. No one is allowed
to stand inside, and if the car contains its quota of
passengers, the driver hangs out the sign, " Lleno "
(full), and doesn't stop even for the Archbishop. It
is just as well, perhaps, to sit at the front end of
the car if you are afraid of smallpox, for the other
morning a Philippine mamma brushed into a seat
holding a scantily clothed babe well covered with
evidences of that disease. One sympathizes with the
single pony that does the pulling as he sees thirty
people besides the car in his load, and it is no un-
common thing on a slight rise or sharp turn for all
hands to get off and help the vehicle over the diffi-
culty. The driver holds the whip by the wrong end
and lets the heavy one come down with double force
on the terribly tough hide of the motive power.
Aside from tram-cars some of these little beasts,
however, are possessed of great speed, and with a
reckless cochero in charge, it is no uncommon sight
to see three or four turnouts come tearing down the
street abreast, full tilt, clearing the road, killing dogs
and roosters, and making one's hair stand on end.

Speaking of roosters, they are the native dog in
the Philippines. The inhabitants pet and coddle
them, smooth down their plumage, clean their combs,
or pull out their tail-feathers to make them fight, to
theij; heart's content, and it is a fact that these cack-

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 29

ling glass-eaters really seem to show affection for
their proprietors, in as great measure as they ex-
hibit hatred for their brothers. Every native has his
fighting-cock, which is reared with the greatest care
until he has shown sufficient prowess to entitle him
to an entrance into the cock-pit. In case of fire, the
rooster is the first thing rescued and removed to a
place of safety, for babies — common luxuries in the
Philippines — are a secondary consideration and more
easily duplicated than the feathered biped. It is al-
most impossible to walk along any street in the
suburban part of the town without seeing dozens of
natives trudging along with roosters under their arms,
which are being talked to and petted to distraction.
At every other little roadside hut, an impromptu battle
will be going on between two birds of equal or unequal
merit, the two proprietors holding their respective
roosters by the tails in order that they may not come
into too close quarters. The cock-pits, where gath-
erings are held on Thursdays and Sundays, are large
enclosures covered with a roof of thatch sewed on-
to a framework of bamboo ; they are open on all sides,
and banked up with tiers of rude seats that surround
a sawdust ring in the centre. Outside the gates to
the flimsy structure sit a motley crowd of women,
young and old, selling eatables whose dark, greasy
texture beggars description, while here and there in

30 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

the open spaces a couple of natives will be giving
their respective roosters a sort of preliminary trial
with each other. As the show goes on inside, shouts
and applause resound at every opportunity, and at
the close of the performance a multitude of two-
wheeled gigs carry off the victors with their spoils,
while the losers trudge home through the dust on
foot.

Other familiar street-scenes consist of Chinese
barbers, who carry around a chair, a pair of scissors,
and a razor wherever they go, and stop to give you
a shave or hair-cut at any part of the block; or
Chinese ear-cleaners, who scoop out of those organs
some of the unprintable epithets hurled by one native
at another. Cascades of slops not uncommonly de-
scend into the street as one walks along beneath a
slightly overhanging second story of some of the
houses, and one is impressed, if not wet, by this favor-
ite method of laying the street-dust.

Besides the daily afternoon music on the Luneta, a
full-fledged Italian opera troupe has come to town
and has begun to give performances in the Teatro
Zorilla. " Carmen " and " The Cavalleria Eusticana "
are on the bill for this week, and many other of the
old standbys are going to have their turn later.

In respect to music, sidetracked though it is, Ma-
nila seems to be more favored than her sister capitals

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 31

in the Far East, and everyone appears to be able to
play on something. Such of the native houses as are
too frail to support pianos shelter harps, violins, and
other stringed instruments, while some of the more
expensive structures contain the whole selection.
Of an evening — in the suburbs — it is no uncommon
thing to hear the strains of a well-played Spanish
march issuing from under the thatch of a rickety hut,
or to find an impromptu concert going on in the lit-
tle tram-car which is bringing home a handful of native
youth with their guitars or mandolins. Every district
has its band, some of the instruments in which are of-
ten made out of empty kerosene-cans, and the nights
resound with tunes from all quarters. In fact, the
Philippine band is one of the chief articles of export
from Manila, and groups of natives with their cheap
instruments are shipped off to Japan, India, and the
Spice Islands, to carry harmony into the midst of
communities where music is uncultivated. All in all,
it is extremely curious that out of all the peoples of
the Far East the Filipinos are the only ones possess-
ing a natural talent for music, and that the islands
to-day stand out unique from among all the sur-
rounding territory as being the home of a musical
race, who do not make the night as hideous with
weird beatings of tom-toms as they do poetic with
soft waltzes coaxed from gruff trombones.

32 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

January 18th.

Manila is pretty well, thanks. The weather has
been cool and comfortable. Showers have come every
day or two to lay the dust, and one could not want a
more salubrious condition of things. The sunsets
from the Luneta have been more than pyrotechnic, and
I now believe that nowhere do you see such displays
of color as in the Orient, Land of the Sunrise. Dur-
ing these three weeks of my stay, so far there have
been five holidays, and we have had ample time to
take afternoon walks up the beach, or play tennis at
the club, or indulge in moonlight rows on the Pasig.

A week ago on the island just opposite the club,
where lies a good-sized village, containing an old
church, there was a religious festival, which lasted all
the week. This was the Fiesta of Pandacan, and all
the natives for miles around came pouring down by
our veranda, in bancas and barges, on their way
across the river. Every night during the week, bands
of music played on one side of the stream and on the
other side, and then crossed to their respective oppo-
sites, playing in transitu, and then setting up shop on
shore again. Then there were fireworks, bombs, and
rockets galore, so that the early night was alive with
noise and sparks. On the evening of the grand wind-
up we crossed over to see the sights, in one of the
usual hollo wed- out tree-trunk ferryboats. Crowds of

f/1

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 33

gayly dressed natives surged around the plaza, near
the old church, while everywhere along the edges
squatted old men and women, cooking all sorts of
greasy "chow" on those peculiar Philippine stoves
described in the last chapter. Everybody smoked,
as well as the pots and kettles, and the air was there-
fore foggy. The little, low-thatched houses were
jauntily decorated with lanterns and streamers, and
at all the open fronts leaned out rows of grinning
natives.

Here and there were small "tiendas" or little
booths, where cheap American toys, collar-buttons,
pictures, and little figures of the Saviour were sold,
and great was the hubbub. The houses, as well as
the people, are very low of stature, and as we walked
along the narrow, almost cunning streets, our shoul-
ders level with the eaves of many of the shanties, and
above the heads of many of the people, we felt indeed
like giants. Many were the pianos in those native
huts, and peculiar mixtures of strikingly decent play-
ing fell upon the ear from all sides.

The whole circus wound up with a grand pyrotech-
nical illumination of the old church from base to
tower, and a score of loud explosions, caused by the
setting off of many dozen bombs at the same time,
made up in noise what the religious celebration

lacked in spirituality. Then all the bands came back
3

34 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

and played their lungs out as they crossed the river,
and all the people rushed for bancas, and came chat-
tering home. Thus did this pretty little religious
show consume, in noise and sparks, the contributions
of a very long time.

The grand opera company which is here is doing
remarkably well, and "Faust" was given the other
evening to a crowded house. The theatre Zorilla is
round, like a circus, and in the centre of the ring sit
the holders of our regular orchestra seats, facing the
stage, which chops off the segment of the circle
opposite the main entrance. In a rim surrounding
the central arena stretches the single row of boxes, a
good deal like small open sheep-pens, separated
from each other only by insignificant railings. Next
comes the surrounding aisle, and in the broad outside
section of the circle, rising up in steep tiers, are the
seats for the natives and gallery gods, who invariably
bring their lunch with them, to pass away the time
during the long intermissions. The orchestra is a
native one, led by an Italian conductor, and doesn't
tuck its shirt into its trousers. The musicians, who
battle with the difficult score, grind out their music
quite as successfully as some of our home performers,
who would scorn the dark faces and flying shirt-tails
of their Philippine brethren.

During the performance the management intro-

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 35

duced a ballet, whose members were native Filipinas.
It was too laughable. The faces and arms of the
women who formed the corps seemed first to have
been covered with mucilage, and then besprinkled
with flour in order to bring the dark-brown complex-
ion up to the softer half-tints of the Italian perform-
ers. The native lady, as a rule, is unacquainted with
French shoes or high heels, slippers being the
every-day equipment, and when these flowery beings
came forward on to the stage, saw the huge audience,
and tried to go through the mazes of the dance in
European footgear, they felt entirely snarled up, even
if they didn't look more than half so. But this only
served to keep the audience in a good humor, and
everybody seemed to enjoy both the singing and the
deviltry of Mephistopheles, whose part was well
taken. The waits between the acts were long, and
the drop-curtain was covered with barefaced adver-
tisements of dealers in pills, hats, and carriages. But
there were cool little cafes across the roadway run-
ning by the theatre, and one forgot the delay in the
pleasure of being refreshed by Spanish chocolate and
crisp bunuelos.

In front of the main entrance to the theatre stood
two firemen, with hose in hand, ready to play on
anything as soon as the orchestra stopped or a lamp
fell, but otherwise nothing was particularly strange.

36 YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

The whole structure was oil-lighted with rickety
chandeliers, which shed a dangerous though brilliant
glare down upon a large audience of most exquisite-
ly dressed Spanish people, mestizos and foreigners.
Pretty little flower-girls wandered about trying to
dispose of their wares to the rather over-dressed
dudes of the upper half-caste 400, and their mammas
often followed them around to assist in making sales.
If it begins to rain in the afternoon, before the per-
formance, everybody understands that the show is
to be postponed, provided clearing conditions do not
follow, and those who hold tickets are, as a rule,
grateful not to be obliged to risk their horses and
their starched clothes to the treatment of a possible
downpour.

The Luneta is still a close rival to the opera, and
each afternoon a dozen of us will generally meet there
to refresh ourselves with the music and the passing
show. Toward sundown, in the afternoons, of late,
the big guns in the batteries up along the walls of
Old Manila, hard by, have been used in long-dis-
tance sea target-practice, and it has been interesting,
on the way from the office to the promenade, to walk
along the beach and see the cannon-balls zip over the
water and slump into it miles from their destination.
The same target serves every afternoon, and seems
perfectly safe from being hit. I wish I could say as

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 37

much for the fleet of American ships that are lying
off the breakwater, at the anchorage.

February 8th.

It seems peculiar to see the moon standing directly
overhead o'nights, and casting a shadow of one's self
that is without meaning. I never yet realized we had
so little shape before, looking from above, as when I
saw this new species of shadow the other night, and
was really sorry that the angels never had a chance
to look at us from a better point of view.

To be politic, and begin with the weather as usual,
a cold snap lately has given everyone the " grippe."
The mercury actually stood at 74° all one day, and
couldn't be coaxed to go higher. Think of the suffer-
ing that such low temperature would occasion among
a people who have no furnaces or open fireplaces.
You may think I am facetious, but 74° in the Phil-
ippines means a great deal to people who are always
accustomed to 95°.

The opera -talk continues, and "Fra Diavolo"
was most successfully performed to a crowded house
the other evening. " The Barber of Seville " was given
Sunday night with equal eclat, and the prima donna
was a star of the first water, whose merits were rec-
ognized in the presentation of some huge flower-
pieces, probably paid for by herself. But the opera

38 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

has had a rival, and those who are not so musically
inclined have spent most of their spare moments in
discussing the great bull and tiger fight which took
place Sunday afternoon.

It was a queer show, and not altogether edifying.
The old bull-ring, squatting out in the rice-fields of
Ermita suburb, was to be used for the last time, and
the occasion was to be of unusual interest, since the
flaming posters announced, in grown-up letters :

STRUGGLE BETWEEN WILD BEASTS.

GBAND FIGHT TO THE DEATH BETWEEN FUUI-BLOODED

SPANISH BTOL, AND ROYAL BENGAL TIGEE,

DIRECT FBOM THE JUNGIIES OF INDIA.

For days before the show came off, conversation in
the cafes along the Escolta invariably turned to the
subject of the coming exhibition, and it was evident
that the managers fully intended both to reap a large
harvest of heavy dollars and to wind up the career of
the bull-ring association in a blaze of blood and glory.

The steaming Sunday afternoon found everybody
directing his steps toward the wooden structure which
consisted of a lot of rickety seats piled up around a
circular arena. The reserved sections were covered
with a light roof, to keep off the afternoon sun, but

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 39

the bleaching-boards for those that held only "bil-
letes de sol " were exposed to the blinding glare. The
audience, a crowd of three thousand persons, with
dark faces showing above suits of white sheeting,
found the centre of the ring ornamented with a huge
iron cage some two rods square, while off at the sides
were smaller cages containing the "fieras" or wild
beasts.

The show opened amid breathless excitement, with
an exhibition of panthers, and a man dressed in pink
tights ate dinner in the big cage, after setting off a
bunch of firecrackers under one of the "fieras," who
didn't seem inclined to wake up enough to lick his
chops and make-believe masticate somebody. The
daring performer lived to digest his glass of water,
with one cracker thrown in, and a deer was next in-
troduced into the enclosure. The panther, at com-
mand of the keeper to get to business, seemed unwil-
ling to attack his gentle foe, and on continued hissing
from the big audience, the two animals were at length
withdrawn.

Then great shouts of " El toro ! El toro ! " arose,
as off at the small gate, at one side, appeared the
bull, calmly walking forward, under the guidance of
two natives, who didn't wear any shoes. And re-
newed applause arose, as the small heavy cage con-
taining the E. B. tiger was rolled up to a sliding-

40 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

door of the central structure. The bull was shoved
into the iron jail, the gate closed, a dozen or more
bunches of firecrackers were set off in the small box
holding the tiger, in order to waken him up, the
slide connecting the two was withdrawn, and, with a
deafening roar, the great Indian cat rushed forth and
tried to swallow a man who was standing outside the
bars waving a heated pitchfork. The bull stood
quietly in one corner wagging his tail, and after
blinking his eyes once or twice, proceeded to ex-
amine his antagonist, in a most friendly spirit. In
fact, there seemed to be no hard feeling at all be-
tween the two beasts, and the tiger only wanted to
get at the gentleman outside the cage, not at the
bull. The audience howled, jeered at the tiger, bet
on the bull, and criticised the man with the pitch-
fork as he gave the tiger several hard pokes in the
ribs. This served to anger the beast so that he
finally did make a dive at the bull, and promptly
found himself tossed into the air. But as he came
down, he hung on to the bull's nose, and dug his
claws into the tough hide. Curiously enough, the
bull didn't seem to mind that in the least, and the
two stood perfectly still for some five minutes, locked
in close quarters.

To make a long story short, there occurred four
or five of these mild attacks, always incited by

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 41

the man with the pitchfork, during which the bull
stepped on the tiger, making him howl with pain,
and the latter badly bit the former on the legs and
nose. After the fourth round, both beasts seemed
to be in want of a siesta. It was growing dark, and
the dissatisfied audience cried for another bull and
another tiger. The first animal was finally dragged
away, after the tiger had retreated to his cage, and a
fresh bull with more spirit was introduced. Now,
however, the tiger was less game than ever, and no
amount of firecrackers or pitchforkings could induce
him to stir from the small cage. He seemed far too
sensible, and literally appeared to be the possessor
of an asbestos skin.

It had now got pretty dark, and the audience joined
in the pandemonium of howls coming from the vari-
ous cages. People began to light matches to see
their programmes, and the circus-ring looked as if it
were filled with fireflies. Then the programmes
themselves were ignited for more light, and cries of
" Give us back our money," " What's the matter with
the tiger?" and others of a less printable order, arose.
Men jumped into the ring, but the tiger refused to
move for anybody. In the hope of stirring things up,
a couple of panthers were again hastily wheeled up
and pushed into the cage, where the bull was stand-
ing with an expression of wonder on his face. But

42 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

the bull merely licked one panther on the nose and
wagged his tail at the other, while the show was de-
clared off on account of darkness. Then everybody
filed out in disgust, and the man with the tiger,
panthers, and pitchfork made arrangements to sail
for foreign shores by the first steamer. Such was
the last performance in the Plaza de Toros de Ma-
nila.

It was a pleasant contrast after the fight to ad-
journ to the Luneta. The day was Carnival Sunday,
and all the young children of the community were
rigged up in many sorts of inconceivable gowns.
Clowns and ballet-dancers, devils and angels, all
wandered up and down the smooth walk, and the
crowd was immense. Numbers of the older people
also took part, and many of the smart traps were
occupied with grotesque figures. The artillery-band
rendered some of its finest selections. The ships off
in the bay were almost completely reflected in the
calm water. The mountains rose blue, like velvet,
in the distance, and a red glow in the Boca Chica
told where the sun had gone down for us, only to
rise on the distant snows of New England.

ra

A Philippine Valet — The Three Days Chinese New Year — Marionettes
and Minstrels at Manila — Yankee Skippers — Furnishing a Bunga-
low— Rats, Lizards, and Mosquitoes — A New Arrival — Pony-
Races in Santa Mesa — Cigars and Cheroots — Servants — Cool
Mountain Breezes — House-snakes — Cost of Living — Holy Week.

February 16th.

NEWS to begin with. I have engaged a Philippine
valet, price $4.50 per month ; a man with a wife, two
children, and a fighting-cock, who buys all his better
half's pink calico gowns and all the food for the party
on this large salary. It is a wonder what revolutions
have taken place in my wardrobe. My heavy clothes,
already grown musty from disuse, have been taken
out, sun-dried, and laid carefully away. I no longer
have to decide what to wear each morning, for it is
settled for me beforehand. Everything that my
"boy" wishes me to don is laid out on a chair during
my early pilgrimage to the bath, and all that is neces-
sary to do on my return is to get into them. It is quite
a luxury, and I shall certainly be inclined to bring
this cheap gentleman back with me when I return to
Boston. My neckties, which have hitherto snarled

themselves up in the corner of a drawer, now are

48

44: YESTEEDATS IN THE PHILIPPINES

hanging from a neat clothes-line, side by side. My
books and papers on the centre table are arranged
with unnatural formality, and the smaller articles,
such as lead-pencils, buttons, pin-cushions, are all
adjusted in definite geometrical formation. At break-
fast and dinner in the club-house I no longer have
to whistle to be waited on, for my slave is always be-
hind the chair, ready to spill the soup on my coat or
pass the plum-pudding. These serving-boys all be-
long to the Tagalog race, which seems to include in
its numbers most of the native inhabitants in Manila
and the adjacent towns. They all have straight, thick
black hair, speak their peculiar Tagalog language, and
only pick up enough Spanish to carry them through
the performance of their simple duties.

And still the holidays, more or less, continue.
About this time of year there is one a week, and just
now the Chinese New Year occupies about three
days. The business part of the town is quiet. All
the Chinese merchants have driven off on a pic-
nic, and it is impossible to hire carriages of any sort.

Manila, on the whole, is waking up, and besides
the opera we now have the marionette troupe, some-
thing entirely new to the average citizen. It seems
there are four sisters travelling around the world with
their little collection of string-pulled puppets, giving
exhibitions in all the larger centres. Their fame had

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHIUPPINES 45

preceded them, and so the other night when the
doors of the Teatro Filipino were thrown open,
a huge crowd assembled to see the performance.
The stage was a fairly large one, but so arranged
optically that it made the figures appear larger
than they really were. The actors (puppets) were
remarkable for their lifelikeness, and if one had
not seen the strings stretching upward he would
have taken them to be animate beings. Their
costumes were complete and elaborate in every
particular. First came a tight-rope walker, then
an acrobat balancing a pair of chairs, and then
Old Mother Hubbard, out of whose voluminous pet-
ticoats jumped half a dozen little men and women,
all of whom danced and cut up as if they were really
reasoning bipeds instead of material, loose -jointed,
wax-faced dolls. Old Mamma was especially good, and
as she stirred up her little children with a long staff,
looked at first this one and then that, shook her head,
pointed her finger, and danced with the others, she
brought down the house with applause.

Later on came a minstrel troupe, with two end-men,
a leader who waved a baton, a harpist, and two other
musicians. They all played, and the end-men cracked
jokes. Next came a clog-dance between two darkies,
and it was difficult to believe that they were not
alive. Further on came a bulldog, which grabbed a

46 YESTEKDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

policeman by the nether breeches and pulled a huge
piece out of them ; a bull, who chased a farmer and
threw him over a rail fence (this took wonderfully
well, for the Spaniards go crazy over anything with a
bull in it) ; then a boarding-house scene, with a fold-
ing-bed that shut up its occupants inside; next, a
balloon ascension, in which a man on the ground was
suddenly caught up into the air by an anchor thrown
out from the balloon; then the death of the two
aeronauts, who fall from a dizzy height ; next, a ride
in a donkey-cart by two lovers, who find themselves
run away with and get snarled up on the wagon, to be
kicked black and blue by the donkey. Finally came
a very complete little play of " Bluebeard," with com-
plete scenery, costumes, and ballet. All of the scen-
ery was of the lightning-change sort, and the Span-
iards, mestizos, and natives in the audience sat and
looked on with open-mouthed wonder, too aston-
ished to laugh, too senseless to cry, and able but to
clothe their faces with expressions of wonder.

To change the subject rather abruptly, the captain
of the Esmeralda, the little steamer on which I came
from Hong Kong, has been good enough to ask me
on board his vessel to tiffin as often as she comes
into port. As Captain Tayler's table is noted both
for its excellence and profusion, the very few of us
who comprise the American colony as well as all the

bO

H

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 47

Englishmen in town, always covet an invitation to
spend Sunday in his company and enjoy various
dishes that are not to be procured in Manila mar-
kets.

Besides the several steamers that ply between
ports on the neighboring coast, there is now a large
fleet of American ships at anchor in the bay, and
our office, which shelters the only American firm in
the Philippines, is a great centre for the various
Yankee, nasal-twanged skippers, who, dressed in hot-
looking, ready-made tweeds, come ashore without
their collars to ask questions about home topics and
read newspapers six weeks old. They delight to en-
joy the sea-breezes generated by our big punka,
and only leave the office on matters of urgent neces-
sity. Several of the captains have their whole fam-
ilies with them, and one, who is especially well-to-
do, owns his own ship, carries along a bright tutor,
who is preparing some of the skipper's sons for col-
lege, and has transformed the vessel into a veritable
institution of learning. On nearly every evening
the whole fleet in a body go to some one ship, sing
songs and have refreshments, and the other night
Governor Robie was the host. Being invited to
partake of the festivities, we two Yankees went off
into the bay at about sunset, ate a regulation New
England dinner, with rather too much weight to it

48 YESTEKDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

for hot climates, and met all the belles of the fleet.
The moon overhead was full, and with a good piano,
violin, hand-organ, and a couple of ocarinas, giving
vent to sweet sounds, we had an impromptu dance
on the quarter-deck. We stayed out on the ship of
our host and hostess all night. They apologized
because the bunks in the state-rooms assigned to us
were so hard, little realizing that we couldn't sleep
worth a continental on account of their being so
ridiculously soft after our Philippine cane arrange-
ments.

Everybody is talking horse now, and business will
be at a standstill during the first few days of the
coming month, when the pony races take place at the
suburban course in Santa Mesa. As a result, every
afternoon that some of us do not go rowing or play
tennis, we adjourn to the race-track, and, in company
with groups of Spaniards and wealthy mestizos, watch
the smart ponies circle around the track.

And, speaking of the race-course, I have just made
arrangements with one of my new friends to take a
bungalow situated on a low rise that backgrounds the
track at the quarter-mile post. It stands, prettily
shaded by bamboo-trees, on practically the first bit
of upland that later grows into the lofty mountains
of the interior, and the view off over the race-course
and low-lying paddy-fields, squared off into sections,

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 49

toward the city, is most picturesque. On another side
we look off over the winding river toward the moun-
tains, which hardly appear five miles away, and still
another view is a bamboo grove, against which is
backed up our little stable with various outbuildings,
including the kitchen. A broad veranda runs entirely
around the main building, where the living-rooms are
located, and Venetian roll-blinds let down from the
piazza-roof keep off the afternoon sun.

Yesterday I had my first experience in making
extensive purchases of furniture, and was interested
to see about twelve coolies start off from the city
toward our country residence, three miles away,
loaded down with beds, tables, chairs, and other
articles. Four of them started off later on with the
upright piano balanced on a couple of cross-sticks
resting on their shoulders, and trotted the whole dis-
tance without sitting down to play the " Li Hung
Chang March " more than twice. These living carriers
rather take the place of express wagons in the East,
and a long caravan of furniture-laden Celestials, sol-
emnly going along through the highway at a jog-
trot, is no uncommon sight. We shall need dishes,
knives, pots and kettles, and a whole "World's Fair
of trumpery, before we get started, and I shall have to
be busy with a Spanish dictionary, in order to get
familiar with the right names for the right things.

50 TESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

You have asked me how the mosquitoes fare upon
the newly arrived foreigner. To tell the truth, I have
not seen more than half a dozen since coming to
Manila, and those all sang in tune. Everybody sleeps
under nettings, of course, but so far I have not seen as
many biters flying around at night as there are in
the United States of America. To be sure, one sees
a good many lizards hanging by the eye-teeth to the
walls, or walking about unconcernedly up-side-down
on the ceilings, but they do good missionary work by
devouring the host of smaller bugs, and it is one of
our highest intellectual pursuits here in Manila to
stretch out in a long chair and go to sleep gazing
upward at these enterprising bug-catchers pursuing
their vocation. And, now and then, from some
piazza-roof or ceiling will drop on your face a so-
called hairy caterpillar whose promenade on one's
epidermis will cause it to swell up in great welts that
close one's eyes and ruffle the temper.

Eats are more numerous than mosquitoes, and the
other day, on my opening a drawer in some of our
office furniture, three jumped out. The office was
transformed into an impromptu race-course, and all
hands were called to take part in the slaughter. But
Manila doors are loose-jointed, and the rodents
escaped somewhere into the next room. Since then
I have had the legs sawed off of my desk, so that

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 51

these literary beggars, who delight to eat up one's val-
uable papers, should not climb in and make a meal off
of my private cable code — a thing which they started
to do some time ago. They have already several
times run off with the candle which was used for
heating sealing-wax, and possess such prowess that
they even took it out of the candlestick.

We had a new arrival at the club lately in the per-
son of a young Englishman who came fresh from
Britain. Someone had stuffed him with tales of in-
dolent life in the Far East, for he came in to his first
dinner at the club clad only in pajamas and green
carpet-bag slippers. He also thought that the Span-
ish language consisted in adding final a's to words in
the English tongue and shouted all over the club next
morning for sopa, sopa, with which to cleanse him-
self. But the servant brought him a plate of soup,
and he is now trying to remember that soap in Span-
ish is translated by jabon, not sopa. Jamon, the
word for ham, however, is close enough to give him
trouble and he will no doubt ask for soap instead of
ham at our next repast.

March 16th.

The pony races came off with great eclat on the first
four days of this month, and were decidedly interest-
ing. All Manila turned out, and such a collection of

52 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

carriages I have never seen. All the Spanish ladies
put an extra coat of paint on their complexions, and,
dressed in their best bibs and tuckers, made some-
what of a ghastly show in the searching light of early
afternoon. The high, thatched-roofed grand stand
presented a duly gay appearance as the bell rang for
the first event, and the dried-up paddy-fields, far
and near, crackled with natives directing their steps
toward the centre of attraction.

In front of the grand stand groups of Spaniards,
Englishmen, and sea-captains formed centres for bet-
ting, and off at the sides were refreshment-booths to
which everyone made pilgrimage as often as the ar-
ticulatory muscles were in need of lubrication.

Some of the ponies were splendid-looking little
" critters " and made almost as fast time as their larger
brethren, the horses. During race-afternoons, busi-
ness in the city was entirely suspended, and everyone
who had a dollar took it to the race-course to gain
other dollars. As the currency system is all metal,
bets were paid in hard coin, and if you happened to
buy a lucky ticket in that gambling machine, the
"totalizator," you would perhaps have a whole hatful
of heavy silver cartwheels shoved at you on present-
ing the winning pasteboard. And it was no uncom-
mon sight at the close of the races to see some of
the thinly clad natives whom fortune had favored go

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 53

trudging home across the rice-fields, carrying a load
of dollars in a straw hat or a bright bandana.

One by one the vessels are dropping away from
their anchorage in the bay, and by Saturday our
Vigilant will heave up anchor and start on her twenty-
thousand-mile journey to Boston via the Cape, with
her big cargo of hemp. Thanks to our attentions to
the captains, they have seemed willing to take home
for us any amount of souvenirs and curios, and I have
sent along quite an assortment of stuffed bats, lizards,
and snake-skin canes, which I feel sure will cause
somebody to creep on their arrival.

Manila's best cigar, made of a special, selected
tobacco, wrapped in the neatest of silverfoil and
packed in rosewood boxes tied with Spanish ribbon,
costs about five cents and is considered a rare deli-
cacy. One scarcely ever sees these cigars, the " In-
comparables," outside of the city itself, and the brand
is so choice that but few smokers are acquainted with
it. The foreigner in Manila thinks he is paying dear
for his weed at $20 per thousand, and some of our
professional smokers limit themselves to those favorite
"Bouquets " which correspond to our " two-for-a-quar-
ter" variety but sell here for $1.80 a hundred. Below
these upper grades come a various assortment of
cheaper varieties, including the cheroots, big at one
end and small at the other, and the $3-a-thousand

54 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

cigars which are made of the first thing that comes
handy, to be sold to the crews of deep-water mer-
chantmen. A native of the Philippines wants his
cigarette, and gets it. Packages of thirty are sold
on almost every corner for a couple of coppers, and to
my mind the Manila cigarette is far superior to the
variety found in Cuba. Smoking is, of course, en-
couraged by prices such as these, and one finds it
perfectly good form to borrow a cigarette, as well as
a light, from his neighbor in the tram-car or on the
plaza. Even on the toll-bridge which spans the Pasig
you pay your copper for crossing, and get in change
a box of matches ; and if you are queer enough not
to want the matches, the man will give you instead a
ticket that avails for the return trip.

Sunday I left my room at the club and moved into
our new house out in the suburb of Santa Mesa. It
is just a week now since the Chinese cook came and
began to christen the pots and saucepans, whose
Spanish names I shall never get to remember. He
began by rendering me a small account of the
"extras" provided for our table, and I was floored
the first thing on an item of five cents put down as
" Hongos." I asked him what that was. He spluttered
around in Spanish and looked about the room to
see if he couldn't find a few growing in one of our
pictures of still life on the walls. At length, being

o o

r; TO

2 as

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 55

struck with an inspiration, he seized a small fan, ex-
citedly stuck it into one of our flower-pots, balanced
on top of it an inverted ash-tray, and danced around,
pointing first to the item on the bill and then to the
peculiar growth in the flower-pot. I confess I didn't
follow his reasoning, till suddenly it struck me that
for our first dinner in the new house we had partaken
of mushrooms. Not far off from an ash-tray balanced
on a Japanese fan growing out of a flower-pot — are
they ? The style of decoration in our house is espe-
cially Japanese, and, needless to say, artistic, since
there are large Japanese and Indian shops in Manila,
where one can get all sorts of gimcracks at low prices.
Our servants number seven, a small quota for two of
us. Although their wages are small, amounting, as a
rule, to $4 apiece per month, yet it is necessary to
have plenty of them, in order that a certain few shall
be awake when wanted.

The fresh breeze, which in the evenings and early
mornings blows down direct from the lofty mountains,
is so cool that often several blankets have been neces-
sary in the sleeping contrivance. Mosquitoes are still
conspicuous by their absence, but the rats up in the
roof sound tremendously numerous. All night they
seem to be pulling boxes to and fro, taking up boards
and nailing them down, and having a general all-
hands-round sort of a dance.

56 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

Nearly all of the older bungalows in Manila possess
what are called house-snakes ; huge reptiles generally
about twelve or fourteen feet long and as thick as a
fire-engine hose, that permanently reside up in the
roof and live on the rats. These big creatures are
harmless, and rarely, if ever, leave their abodes.
Judging from the noise over my cloth ceiling, a pair
of these pets find pasturage up above, and I can hear
them whacking around about once a week in their
chase after rats. They are good though noisy rat-
catchers, but since they must needs eat all they catch,
their efficiency appears to be limited to their length
of stomach, and one night of energetic campaign
is generally followed by several days of rest, during
which the snake sees if he has bitten off more than
he can chew. If the Philippine cats were more noble
specimens of the quadruped, I should try to place
half a dozen up in this midnight concert-hall, but
they are so feeble that I fear their lives would be in
danger. It is hardly to be wondered at that these
native cats are modestly retiring, when you wake at
night to hear your shoes being dragged off across the
floor by some huge rice-fed rodent, and I don't blame
them at all for having right angles at the end of their
tails.

The only way to get rid of the rats seems to be to
buy more snakes, and this is simple enough, for you

YESTEKDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 67

often see the natives hawking them around in town,
the boas curled up around bamboo poles, to which
their heads are tied.

Some of our other domestic pets are lizards, sup-
posed to be about four feet long, who sing every even-
ing at 8.30 P.M., from somewhere off down in the
shrubbery ; several roving turkeys and pigs that be-
long to the boys that serve us, a cluster of fighting-
cocks, and a family of puppies. It is easy to be seen
that our establishment is thus somewhat of a tropical
menagerie, and a performance is almost always going
on in some quarter or other.

I have just completed the purchase of a horse and
carriage complete, including the coachman, for $100,
and on the first trial we passed everything on the
road. The pony is a high-stepper, and rattled along
over the ground at a terrific speed, as a good Philip-
pine animal should. The coachman seems to know
how to drive, which is a rare attainment among the
natives, and so far, though he has run over two boys,
he has not taken off any wheels in the car-tracks.

They say it costs a good deal to live well out this
way, but that is a mistake, and if one lived at home
in the same style the bills would be at least ten times
as large. To be sure, it would be possible to come
to Manila, board with a Spanish family in the old
city, avoid joining the club, and live almost for noth-

58 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

ing. However, this is a custom not much encouraged
in the Orient, and one cannot properly take his place
among the colony of English and other Europeans
without spending a certain reasonable amount.

Business is done more on a social scale than at
home, and the lowest English clerk in the large houses
feels that he must enter into the free and easy expend-
iture of his better-paid chief. After office hours are
over everyone stands on the same social plane, and
all business talk is tabooed. The office-boy often calls
his lord and master " Bill," and frequently has a bet-
ter-looking horse and carriage.

The U. S. S. Concord has just come into the bay
and been saluted by the fort. Some of her officers
will probably come ashore to breakfast at the club,
and it will probably devolve on the four Americans in
the city to do what is needful in the way of courtesy
to our fellow-countrymen.

To-day is the beginning of Easter Week, nearly all
of whose days are holidays or holy days. This is one
of the closest-observed seasons of the year, and on
next Thursday and Friday, if you will believe it, no
carriages are allowed to appear in the streets either
of Manila or of the other cities. The tram-cars, to be
sure, have of late years been allowed to run, and the
doctor's carriage and the ice-carts can obtain permits.
Beyond them, however, everybody has to stay at home

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 59

or walk ; and in former times tram-cars were forbidden
and no one was allowed to carry an open umbrella.
It seems the proper thing to do to make arrangements
with some of the English colony to take a trip off
into the mountains, and my chum and I expect to
start off by launch on Wednesday afternoon. Our
party will consist of five, not including half a dozen
servants, who are to make arrangements for bringing
the provisions and bedding.

On my return I hope to have some fodder for my
pen and relate some of our experiences in the up-
country districts.

IY

An Up-country Excursion — Steaming up the River to the Lake — Le-
gend of the Chinaman and the Crocodile — Santa Cruz and Pagsan-
jan — Dress of the Women — Mountain Gorges and River Rapids —
Church Processions — Cocoanut Rafts — A " Carromata " Ride to
Paquil — An Earthquake Lasting Forty-five Seconds — Small-pox
and other Diseases in the Philippines — The Manila Fire Depart-
ment— How Thatch Dealers Boom the Market — Cost of Living.

March 27, 1894.

THE Easter holidays have come and gone, and one
of the favorite vacation trips from Manila has been
brought to a close. Five of us have seen lake, moun-
tain, and river scenery ; have been taking interesting
walks, drives, swims ; have camped out in a good
house and enjoyed the hospitality of our native Ind-
ian friends. Whistling for the punka-boy to go
ahead, I will now set down the record of our trip.

The week from the 18th of March to the 25th was
practically one long holiday, but it was Wednesday,
the 21st, in the afternoon, that we left Manila for the
interior. Band and I got up the trip by procuring
a large and commodious steam-launch for five days
— gratis. Having done our share, we left our

three companions to look after the " chow " and

60

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 61

other kindred topics. To my " boy " I merely said,
" Wednesday we are going up to the laguna ; pre-
pare what is necessary for four days." That was all,
and on Wednesday afternoon I found him at the
launch with my clothes and bedding all ready to
start. Here also were assembled hams, boxes of ice,
and other provisions, big bundles of personal effects,
and the four " boys " (a " boy " may be seventy years
old if he likes) whom we were going to take along.

The whistle blew, the special artist with his came-
ra ambled aboard, amidst a pile of sun-hats, oranges,
and excitement, and soon the Vigilante was stean:
ing up the river on her sixty-mile trip. Familiar
objects were first passed, but soon after leaving
the up-town club new scenes presented themselves.
The launch stirred up large waves astern that
washed both banks of the river with great energy,
and the first incident was the swamping of three
banca-loads of grass that were on their way down to
Manila under charge of Indian pedlers. Turn after
turn opened up new scenes; our house on the hill
began to fade away, and soon we skimmed through
native villages where white blood was " not in it."
The hills increased in size, the river lessened, and
great bamboo-trees hung over toward the central
channel. At one point, high up on the bluffs, perched
a Chinese pagoda-like chapel, said to have been con-

62 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

structed by a wealthy Celestial as a thanks-offering
for his escape from a crocodile. He was bathing in
the river, so the story goes, when suddenly he saw
the monster making for him. He threw up his hands
and vowed to build a monument to his patron
saint if escape was vouchsafed him. And no sooner
had he spoken than the crocodile turned to stone and
lies there to-day, a long, low black mass, fretting the
current that ripples over it. As we passed the rock
it looked as if it had never been anything else, but
the afternoon was too pleasant to doubt the veracity
of the legend. On we went. The mountains ahead
grew more to look like masses of rock and trees and
less like soft blue velvet. Pasig, an important town,
was left behind, the lowlands came again, a multitude
of fish-weirs stuck up ahead, and before we knew it
the great lake was holding us on its rather muddy
waters just where it slobbered into the mouth of the
river, its only outlet.

On all sides save the one by which we had entered
rose the mountains right out of the water, and I was
reminded of Norway or Scotland. It was like a sea,
and the farther shore was below the horizon. The
sun had set and the full moon rose just ahead as we
kept along the coast to the north. At half after
eight o'clock we anchored off a little town called San-
ta Cruz that seemed to be backed up by two very

YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 63

lofty mountain-peaks, and we were soon surrounded
by two bancas filled with natives who began to trans-
fer our many effects. And so we left the launch, were
slowly poled ashore, and next found ourselves on a
sandy beach surrounded by much people and bag-
gage. Dispatching two of our retinue up into the
town to fetch enough of the two-wheeled covered
gigs called carromatas for our assembly, in about
three-quarters of an hour we had the felicity of see-
ing seven come racing down the road to the lake
shore. Our destination, by the way, was a town
called Pagsanjan, about three-quarters of an hour
from Santa Cruz, and situated just at the foot of a
range of mountains. The chattels were soon loaded,
there was a cracking of whips, a creaking of harness,
and the long procession started off at a rattling gait
through the town and out into the rich cocoanut
groves beyond.

At Manila, outside of bamboo and banana trees,
there is no sign of really equatorial vegetation, but
up in the mountains there was no deception, and
Nature did her best to let us know that the temperate
zone was far away. We bounced along at a terrific
pace and presently saw the lights of our little village.
Rattling through an old stone archway, we drew up be-
fore the house of a certain Captain Feliz, to whom we
had been recommended. The genial old man, whose

64 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

face and corporosity were charmingly circular in their
rotundity, welcomed us with open-armed hospitality,
and saying he knew of just the house that would
accommodate our party, started to lead u£ to it.
After a few steps he suddenly stopped, apologized
smilingly, said he had forgotten his set of false teeth,
and must return for them. And coming back shortly
after, he took out his teeth, commented on their grace
and usefulness, and said he could speak much better
Spanish with than without them.

In due season we drew up at a very thick- walled
stone house on the high bank just above the river,
and were invited to take possession. Our " boys " got
out the provisions in short order, for a late supper ;
our pieces of straw matting were spread out around
the edges of the shining floor of the large "sala"
which had been placed at our disposal for a dormi-
tory ; pillows and light coverings were duly regulated,
and after eating a bit, we said good-night to our
new friends and turned in on the floor to rest. I
found the hardwood planks so soft after my bed at
Manila that before long I arose, arranged eight chairs
in facing pairs, spread out my sleeping-arrangements,
and soon fell asleep in a very good improvised bed
which was high enough from the floor to keep cock-
roaches from using me as a promenade. Thursday
morning we arose early, washed ourselves on the

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 65

balcony that overlooked the fashionable avenue of
the village, and, as is the true Philippine custom,
sprinkled the street with solutions of soapsuds.

Now, as I have said before, the Thursday and Fri-
day before Easter are tremendously sacred days in
the Philippines, and no carriages of any description
are permitted to move about. The little town was
still as death, and the early-morning hush was only
broken now and then by the weird caterwaulings of
the peculiar Passion songs which the natives in these
parts sing off and on during Lent. Later on, as we
finished breakfast, groups of women began coming out
of the various houses and directed their steps church-
ward. Most of them were gorgeously dressed in all
colors of the solar spectrum — with a little cloth
added on — and it was instructive to see an expen-
sively gowned Indian woman emerge from a shabby
little nipa hut that didn't look as if it could incu-
bate such starched freshness. For the dresses that
some of these people wear are costly; and even
their pina neckerchiefs often cost $100.

After breakfast we went down to the river and got
into five hollowed-out tree-trunks, preparatory to the
start up into the mountain-gorges. It was worse
than riding a bicycle, trying to balance one of the
crazy affairs, and for a few moments I feared my

camera and I would get wet. However, nobody
6

66 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

turned turtle, and we were paddled up between the
high cocoanut-fringed banks of the wonderfully clear
river before the early morning sun had looked over
the mountains into whose cool heart we were going.

Then came the first rapids, with backgrounds of
rich slopes showing heavy growths of hemp and
cocoa palms. Another short paddle and the second
set of rapids was passed on foot. A clear blue lane
of water then stretched out in front of us and greached
squarely into the mountain fastnesses through a
huge rift where almost perpendicular walls were
artistically draped with rich foliage that concealed
birds of many colors, a few chattering monkeys, and
many hanging creepers. Again it seemed like a
Norwegian fjord or the Via Mala, but here, instead
of bare rocks, were deeply verdured ones. Above,
the blue sky showed in a narrow irregular line;
below, the absolutely clear water reflected the heav-
ens ; the cliffs rose a thousand feet, the water was
five hundred feet deep, the birds sang, the creepers
hung, the water dripped, and we seemed to float
through a sort of El Dorado, a visionary and unreal
paradise. At last we glided in through a specially
narrow lane not more than fifty feet wide; a holy
twilight prevailed ; the cliffs seemed to hold up the
few fleecy clouds tLat floated far over our head, and
we landed on a little jutiing point for bathing and re-

YESTEKDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 67

freshments. It seemed as if we were diving into the
river Lethe or being introduced to the boudoir of
Nature herself. In an hour we pushed on, passed up
by three more rapids, and halted at last at the foot of
a bridal-veil waterfall that charmed the eye with its
beauty, cooled the air with its mists, and set off the
green foliage with its white purity. Here we lunched,
and in lieu of warm beer drank in the beauties of the
scenery.

The return was a repetition of the advance, except
that we shot one or two of the rapids, and that the
banco, holding the boy and the provisions upset
in a critical place, wetting the crackers that were
labelled "keep dry." We got back to our house by
early afternoon, and all agreed that an inimitable,
unexcelled, wouldn't-have-missed-it-for-the-world ex-
cursion had passed into history.

Good old Captain Feliz took us to call on some of
the native villagers in the late afternoon, who ex-
hibited quite a bit of Indian hospitality. At one
house was a pretty Indian girl who spoke Spanish
very well and entertained our party of six with as
much grace as an American belle. Of course the
presence of five " Ingleses " in town was quite an
event in a place fifty miles from Manila, and as we
walked through street after street each house-win-
dow presented at least seven curious faces; dogs

68 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

barked, fighting-cocks crowed, and the occupations of
the moment were suspended.

After dinner we sat out on the balcony to watch
the procession that wound around through the vari-
ous streets, starting from the fortress-like church and
finally bringing up there. These church parades are
a good deal like our torch-light processions, except
that here images, not mud-besprinkled men, carry
most of the torches. In this affair there were a dozen
or more floats, each one bearing a saint, an apostle,
or somebody else, and each decorated with very
costly drapery, ornaments, and elaborate candelabra
illuminators. Scattered all along between the floats
straggled natives carrying poles on which were im-
ages of a candle, a hand, a spear, a pair of nails, a
cock, a set of garments, and other symbolic articles
relating to the crucifixion. Then came Peter on a
very elaborate moving pedestal, and in his hand he
held the traditional bunch of keys. Then a Descent
from the Cross, with two apostles standing up on
step-ladders. Next came the band of the procession
— three men singing to the tune of an old violin — and
finally the Virgin Mary with glass tears rolling down
her wax cheeks. On each side of the line from start
to finish trooped the populace, mostly women dressed
in black and carrying candles.

Next day was Good Friday. No traps of any de-

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 69

scription to be had, as none were allowed to run, and
so we spent the day about the town and in walk-
ing up into the hills. A look into the great, solid
old church in the morning showed us a fragrant and
gaudily dressed audience kneeling in various post-
ures on the tiled floors, while numerous dogs of
various cross breeds and tempers meandered in
through the door and among the worshippers. From
the church we strolled across a very primitive
bamboo bridge over a branch river, and wandered
through a luxurious cocoanut grove beneath whose
tall trees were situate a couple of very rudimentary
cocoanut-oil mills and the houses of the operators.
The machinery was very crude. One might think he
was back in the days of stone knives, seeing these
simple contrivances, the awkward levers, the foot-
power grindstones, and the old pots and kettles. In
the river near the mills were thousands of cocoanuts
ready to be tied together in rafts for floating down to
Manila, and everybody's business up this way seemed
to consist in watching this oily fruit fall from the
trees.

In the early evening, just before another religious
procession started, we heard a great clatter up in the
belfry of the old church, and learned that the hubbub
was made by " devil-frighteners." On inquiring as
to the nature of this weird clap-trap symphony, it

70 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

seems that on these especially holy days men are
stationed up in the bell-towers with huge wooden
rattles, which they so manipulate from time to time
that the noise is said to act as a scare-crow to the
various devils who are supposed to be hovering about
seeking whom they may devour.

After another peaceful night's rest, some of us
took our morning jump into the river, and all prepared
for a twelve-mile carromata drive out along the
lake shore beneath the mountains, to a little village
called Paquil, said to be possessed of a crystal spring
bathing-pool. The road for a good bit of the way
was of the Napoleon-crossing-the-Alps style, and it
got to be so bad I rather thought we were in for a
walk. Not a bit of it. The carromatas are built
strong as the rocks themselves, the wheels are huge
and solid, the ponies tough as prize-fighters, and the
driver urges the whole affair along at a tremendous
pace. So we bounced along, and most of our time
was spent, not on the seat, but midway between it
and the roof, which occasionally came down and
thumped our heads. On the way we passed through
numerous little villages, and in one out-of-the-way
place we called on an American, Thomas Collins, who
has been practically shut in out here for twenty-five
years. It seems that he got cheated out of a hundred
and fifty thousand dollars' worth of valuable wood a

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 71

good while ago by the officials of a certain provincial
district, and has been trying to get the claim paid
ever since. He was a queer chap, and had almost
forgotten how to speak American ; but at last he man-
aged to remember the word "hell," and then his
ideas began to flow more freely.

When we arrived at Paquil our conductor, the
genial Captain Feliz, walked up to the house of an
acquaintance and asked him to put it at our disposal.
As before, the request was father to the grant, and we
dumped our chattels down into a parlor full of wax
virgins and crucifixes. The bath, for which the vil-
lage is quite famous, is a large pool five feet deep,
with a pebble bottom. At one end a stream of clear
water gushes forth from the hillside, while at the
other an overflow brook carries off the surplus and
goes bubbling down through the village to the lake.
We had our swim after all the native bathers had left,
and got back to our house in time for a tiffin that had
been brought with us in the baskets. In the early
afternoon we took our siesta, in the later hours
started for our jogglety return drive, and at Pagsanjan
found prepared for us a feast of sucking pigs.

On Sunday morning we were ready for our return
to Manila. The seven gigs arrived, we said hearty
farewell to our friends, presented Captain Feliz
some empty bottles and two teapots, and rattled out

72 YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

through the town toward Santa Cruz, where our
launch was in waiting. The trip was cool and pleas-
ant across the lake, but it was hot when in about four
and a half hours we got to the low river-country
again. The sail down was like the sail up, and by
dinner-time we backed water to bump into the portico
of the club, where all hands disembarked for dinner.
Thus ended what I suppose is the most popular and
most delightful excursion which the foreigner can
make from the capital of the Philippines in the few
days which the church feasts at Easter put at his
disposal.

April 6th.

The other night I dreamt I was climbing up a long
hill on a bicycle. Once at the top, I started down
over the other side at a terrific pace. Somehow or
other, by mistake, the wheel ran off into a gutter
at the side of the road, and bounced around in such
a dangerous manner that it all but upset. How-
ever, with tremendous exertion, I managed to jump
the mechanism back onto the smooth ground again,
and continued safely down to the bottom of the hill
at a two-forty gait. Arrived at the bottom, I conven-
iently woke up, and heard a rat under the bed trying
to slide one of my shoes off across the floor.

Next morning, on coming down to the office, several
of my business friends asked me if I had felt the severe

Q

U

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 73

earthquake shock during the night. I said " No," and
inquired as to the particulars. It seems that the
shock lasted some forty-five seconds, and my chum
was awakened by his bed commencing to rock around
and by the four walls of his room attempting to move
in different directions. Nothing in the city was much
injured, I believe, and next day the really excellent
observatory, conducted by the Jesuits, gave out a full
illustrated description of the affair.

Up at our new bungalow, the only incidents worthy
of note have been the attempted stealing of my pony
and the consumption of my best shoes by one of our
house-rats.

A Philippine burglar, curiously enough, takes off
his clothes, smears his dark skin with cocoanut-oil,
and prowls around like a greased pig that cannot be
caught. One of these slippery thieves got into our
stable, unhitched my pony, and took him almost to
the front gate before the. sleepy coachman found his
wits. But prompt action saved the day, and the lu-
bricated robber escaped, leaving his booty pawing the
ground.

But with my shoes I was not so fortunate. I
woke up suddenly to hear something being dragged
across the floor. Thinking it was only a rat making
off with a boot-jack with which to line his nest, I re-
frained from tempting Providence by leaving the pro-

74 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

tection of the mosquito-netting. Next morning I
found that one of these rodents had pulled a pair
of my patent-leather shoes off a low shelf beneath
the bed, dragged them out into the hallway behind a
hat-rack, and eaten up the most savory portions of
the bindings. Complimentary to the prowess of
the rat or to the lightness of my shoes — which ? I
keep them now as articles on which the patent has
run out — worthless, but curiosities.

Otherwise things have run smoothly, and each
evening we lie in the long chairs on the broad ve-
randa, watching the Southern Cross come up over
the hills, or the score of brush-fires of dried rice-
stalks that illuminate the darkness away off toward
the mountains. The music from our piano seems to
give much delight to the members of the servants'
hall, now nine in number, besides several puppies and
game-cocks. The other night, although in the midst
of the hot season, we had a prodigious cold snap
again, when the thermometer went down to sixty,
after being ninety-five during the day, and two blan-
kets were not at all uncomfortable.

I see by the papers that there are at least two cases
of small-pox in Boston, that everybody is alarmed
and hundreds are getting vaccinated. Curious state
of affairs — isn't it ? — when every day out here you see
small children running around in the streets, covered

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 75

with evidences of this disease. Nobody thinks any-
thing about small-pox in Manila, and one ceases to
notice it if a Philippine mamma sits opposite you in
the tram-car, holding in her lap a scantily clothed
child whose swarthy hide is illuminated with those
unmistakable markings. Some weeks ago there were
even four hundred deaths a week in Manila from
this disease alone ; and from the way in which the
afflicted mix with the hale and hearty, you can only
wonder that there were not four thousand. But
small-pox flourishes best in the cool, dry days of our
winter months, and is now being stamped out by the
warmer weather. An effort is being made to have
everybody vaccinated, and the steamers from Japan
have brought down whole cargoes of lymph, but the
natives do not see any reason why they should un-
dergo this experiment, and would much prefer to have
the small-pox than to be vaccinated. And this being
the case, it is no wonder that almost seventy-five per
cent, of them bear those uncomplimentary marks of
the disease's attention.

Now that I have inoculated my page with a refer-
ence to this rather unpleasant subject, it is only a bit
of sad truth to tell of the only fatality caused by the
malady in our little Anglo-Saxon colony. Recently I
went into the Bay with a young Englishman who had
always lived in terror of this one disease, and had

76 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

avoided both contact with the natives and excursions
into the infected districts. The launch took me to the
vessel which we were loading, and then carried him
on to that receiving cargo from his concern. Later
she returned with him, picked me up, and together we
went ashore to stop a moment at the club before going
home for the day. I never saw him again, poor chap,
though I did take over his stable, for next morning he
was taken with black small-pox and died in a week.

The families of the lightermen in the Bay — crowded
as they are into the hencoops over the stern of the
bulky craft — are full of it, and hence the fatal ending
to our little afternoon excursion. As a rule, how-
ever, the members of the English-speaking colony get
so used to this disease that they have no especial fear
in suddenly turning a sharp corner of running into
some native sufferer.

In days gone by, when cholera decimated Manila's
numbers, when people died faster than they could be
buried, when business was at a standstill and the city
one great death-house, were the times that tried
men's souk. But now that those big water-mains
which run along the ground bring fresh water from
far up into the hills, the natives have given up
the deadly practice of drinking from the river, and,
thanks to the good supply system, no longer give the
cholera free admittance.

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 77

Besides small-pox, then, fever is about the greatest
enemy, and certain types of the malarial variety seem
so common that the sufferers from them often walk
into the club, drop into a chair, and say, " Got the
fever again. Means another lay-off. " If they can
keep about, the old stagers never give up ; but
novices buy thermometers and cracked ice, and either
go through a terrific siege, like my friend, whose
eight weeks' struggle shrunk his head so that in con-
valescence his hat touched his ears, or escape with a
week's initiation. Typhoid seems also common, and
there is generally one member of the colony, for
whom the rest are anxious, stretched out in ice-
baths and wishing he had never seen the Philip-
pines. The old hands — who, by the way, seem to
be regular sufferers from the fever — all say the
only way to be safe is to drink plenty of whiskey,
but so far I have found that the less one takes the
better off he is.

Someone in the States has suggested that if things
get too hot it would be well to run over to Hong
Kong for a change of scene. But if there is any place
in the world that is hotter, stickier, more disagree-
able than Hong Kong, in the months from May to
October, let us hear from it. It is far worse in sum-
mer than Manila, for, completely shut in as it is by
the mountains, it does not receive the benefit of the

78 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

southwest monsoon, which blows with great force
over the Philippines during the above months. Even
Japan itself gets a good roasting for the two or three
months of the hot season, and there is not much left
to do but to seek cold weather in Australia. Our only
very hot months here are said to be April and May ;
sometimes part of June. The sun now is directly
overhead and going fast to the north of us, but so far
the temperature has never been unbearable. The mer-
cury stands at about ninety-five from twelve to three
each day, but somehow or other one does not feel it
so much in the cool white suits, unless he attempts to
fall asleep on some of the sheet-iron roofs. The
nights are still cool and comfortable, and what with
a cold snap now and then, such as I spoke of above,
fans are having a poor sale. In the afternoon, walk-
ing, rowing, and tennis are still possible, and the
bands of the Luneta still have enough wind left to
give us the " Funeral March " or " Prize Song."

April 28th.

Manila fare, like Manila life, is not unwholesome,
but it lacks variety, and one rather tires, now and
then, of soup, chicken, beefsteak, and toothpicks —
four staples. But fortunately for us who like variety,
though unhappily for five or six hundred other people,
there occurred a vast conflagration yesterday after-

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 79

noon that sent about five or six hundred houses sail-
ing off through the air in the form of smoke.

As we were getting ready to leave the office for
the day, clouds of smoke suddenly began to rise over
the iron house-roofs to the eastward, and we knew
that one of Manila's semi-annual holocaustic celebra-
tions was in progress. The church bells began to
ring, and all sorts of people and carriages started
toward the centre of interest.

The Manila Fire Department consists of about six
hand-engines and a few hose-carts, and if a fire gets
started it generally burns along until an open field, a
river, or a thick mass of banana-trees stops its prog-
ress. The English houses, to be sure, have recently
gotten out from home one of their small steam "gar-
den-pumps," and many of the young Britons have had
weekly practice in manipulating its various parts.
When the alarm for the present fire rang you might
have seen several servants, employed in their re-
spective homes by the members of the new Volunteer
Fire Department, slowly wandering toward the shed
where the engine was kept, with some nicely folded
red shirts, coats with brass buttons, helmets with
Matterhorn-like summits, and axes that shone from
lack of work. These youths did not seem to be in
any hurry, and it turned out that when they reached
the engine-house, when their masters had togged

80 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

up sufficiently well to impress the spectators, and
when the engine finally got to the fire, the build-
ings had been translated into their new and rather
more ethereal form.

The fire was two miles, more or less, from the cen-
tre of the town. The Volunteer Fire Brigade had
to haul the engine the entire distance, as they feared
that if the usual carabao oxen were hitched on, the
speed over the pavements would be too great. After
reaching the centre of action, an hour was spent in
waiting for the man who brought some spare coal in
a wheelbarrow and in choosing a location which
would not be uncomfortable for the brigade. Conse-
quently, the " London Garden Pump " was stationed
to windward of the fire, on a side where it could not
possibly spread any farther, and thus all stray flames
and smoke were avoided. A hose was stuck down
into the creek, and steam turned on. A stream of
water about large enough to be clearly visible with a
microscope suddenly jumped forth into the middle
of the street, wetting the spectators. Somebody had
forgotten to attach the extra pieces of hose that were
to lead down to the fire, and steam had to be turned
off. After everything was ready to get to business, a
tram-car came along, and it wasn't allowable to stop
its progress by putting a hose across the track, even
if there was a fire. And so it went from grave to

YESTEKDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 81

gay, the swell brigade furnishing the humorous part
of the otherwise rather sad spectacle.

A Philippine fire is like any other, except that with
the many nipa houses it does its work quickly and
well, and in this instance the whole affair lasted but
a couple of hours. Hundreds of families moved out
into the wet rice-fields, with all their chattels, and
there were many curious-looking groups. In saving
various articles of furniture and other valuables, the
fighting-cock, as usual, was considered the most im-
portant, and it was interesting to watch the natives
trudging along with scared faces, holding a rooster
by the legs in one hand and a baby or two in the
other. Pigs, chickens, and dogs seemed to come next
in value, and after them ice-chests and images of the
Virgin Mary. The sun went down on a strange
spectacle, and it was hard not to pity all the crowd
that were thus rudely thrown out of their habitations.
Myriads of spectators there were and myriads of
carriages, of all ages and sizes, some loaded with
chattels ready to take flight, and others waiting to
be. At dusk, however, all danger was over ; the
mobs departed north, east, south, and west ; the brig-
ade carefully brushed the dust off their boots and
shirts, and the poor burned-out unfortunates looked
with moistened eyes on the ruin of their homes.

The wags go far enough to say that the dealers in
6

82 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

thatch are responsible for many of the big fires both
in the capital and smaller villages and that, when
times are bad or prices for thatch low, they arrange
to " bull " the market by means of a conflagration.
A lamp is tipped over — a thousand houses go up in
smoke, and as go the houses so rise the prices for
nipa thatch.

The second series of pony races occurred during
the middle days of this month, at the race-track down
below our bungalow, and all Manila again came roll-
ing up through the dust to see the performances of
the smart ponies. The events were but a repetition
of those which took place in March, except that in
many respects the running-time was better and the
races far more close and interesting.

Some of the old stagers are beginning to complain
of the heat. We take afternoon tea now and then, as
is customary in all the business houses, with some of
our friends, in an office on the other side of our build-
ing. Yesterday afternoon a thermometer placed out-
side of our window registered 125° F., I suspect
this was owing to some of the reflected heat coming
from the iron roofs. Inside the room the mercury
stood at 97° F., but we drank our hot tea and
enjoyed the coolness which resulted from consequent
perspiration.

I have now been settled in Manila long enough to

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 83

find out what it costs to live, and the general cheap-
ness of existence is more appalling than I first
thought. Our house is a good one, with all the com-
forts of home, and is surrounded by an acre or two of
land. We have stables for our horses and outbuild-
ings for the families of our servants. At the end
of the month all expenditures for house-rent, food,
wages, light, and sundries are posted together and
divided by three, and with everything included my
monthly share comes to twenty-nine gold dollars —
less than one of our American cart-wheels — per diem.

Where in the States could you rent a suburban
house and lot, keep half a dozen servants, pay your
meat bill, your drink bill, and your rent all for less
than a single dollar a day ! You can scarcely drive
a dozen blocks in a hansom or buy a pound of Mail-
lard's for that money at home and yet, in Manila, that
one coin shelters you from the weather, ministers to
the inner man, and keeps the parlor in order.

Our cook, for instance, gets forty cents each morn-
ing to supply our table with dinner enough for four
people, and for five cents extra he will decorate the
cloth with orchids and put peas in the soup. To
think of being able to get up a six-course dinner, in-
cluding usually a whole chicken, besides a roast, with
vegetables, salad, dessert, fruit, and coffee, for such a
sum seems ridiculous in the extreme.

84 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

The methods of marketing are almost as noteworthy
as the low prices for " raw materials." All meat must
be eaten on the same day it is killed, since here in the
tropics even ice fails to preserve fish, flesh, or fowl.
As a result, while the beef and mutton are killed in
the early morning — a few hours before the market
opens — the smaller fry, such as chickens and game,
are sold alive. From six to ten on any morning the
native and Chinese cooks from many families may be
seen bargaining for the day's supply among the nest
of stalls in the big market. After filling their baskets
numbers of them mount the little tram-car for the re-
turn trips to their kitchens and proceed to pluck the
feathers off the live chickens or birds as they jog
along on the front or rear platform. By the time
they have arrived home the poor creatures are stripped
of foliage, and, keenly suffering, are pegged down to
the floor of the kitchen to await their fate. Then,
when the creaking of the front gate announces the
return of the master, it is time enough to wring the
necks of the unfortunates and shove them into the
boiling-pot or roasting-pan that seems but to accen-
tuate a certain toughness which fresh-killed meat
possesses.

The washing-bill, again, is far from commensurate
with the fulness of one's clothes-hamper, and for two
gold dollars per month I can turn over to my laundry-

« -6,
X •»

o

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 85

man — who comes in from the country once a week —
as much or as little as I please. Two full suits of
white sheeting clothes a day for thirty days make
one item of no mean dimensions, and yet the lavan-
dero turns up each week with his basketful," per-
fectly satisfied with his remuneration. Then, too, he
washes well, and although, when I see him standing
knee-deep in the river whanging my trousers from
over his head down onto a flat stone, I fear for seams
and buttons, nothing appears to suffer. And al-
though he builds a small bonfire in a brass flat-iron
that looks like a warming-pan and runs it over my
white coats all blazing as it is, the result is excellent,
and one's linen seems better laundered than in the
mills that grind away at home.

As servants, these boys of ours could teach much to
some of their more civilized brethren from Ireland or
Nova Scotia now holding sway in American fami-
lies. They take bossing well, and actually expect to
have their heads punched if things go wrong. They
don't put their arms akimbo and march out of the
house if we mildly suggest that the quality of ants in
the cake or the water-pitcher is not up to standard,
and actually make one feel at liberty to require any-
thing of them.

And speaking of ants, these little creatures are
everywhere ready to eat your house or your dinner

86 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

right from under you. The legs of the dining-table,
the ice-chest, and the sideboard must be islanded in
cups of kerosene, and even the feet to one's bed must
undergo the same treatment, in order that the occu-
pant may awake in the morning to find something of
himself left. Cockroaches are almost equally fierce
and, endowed with wings, these creatures, sometimes
four inches long, go sailing out the window as you
close your eyes and try to step on them. They prowl
around at night, with a sort of clicking sound, seek-
ing something to devour, and are apparently just as
satisfied to eat the glue out of a book-cover as they
are to feed on the rims to one's cuffs or shirt-collars,
moist with perspiration.

What the ants don't swarm over the cockroaches
examine, and what they reject seems to be taken in
charge by the heavy green mould that beards one's
shoes, valise, and tweed suits at the slightest sugges-
tion of wet weather.

Visit of the Sagamore — Another Mountain Excursion — The Caves of
Montalvan — A Hundred-mile View — A Village School — A " Fi-
esta " at Obando — The Manila Fire-tree— A Move to the Seashore
— A Waterspout — Captain Tayler's Dilemma — A Trip Southward
— The Lake of Taal and its Volcano — Seven Hours of Poling — A
Night's Sleep in a Hen-coop.

May 9, 1894.

THE other day the yacht Sagamore dropped anchor
in the bay, her owner and his guests, all Harvard
men, having got thus far on their tour around the
world. I was sitting on the Luneta, Sunday evening,
when I saw those familiar Harvard hat-ribbons com-
ing, and in behalf of our little American colony wel-
comed the wearers of them to Manila. In return for
a dinner or two at the club and a visit to the huge
cigar-factories, where three or four thousand opera-
tors pound away all day at the fragrant weed, I spent
a noon and afternoon aboard the yacht, glad to enjoy
a change of fare. The Sagamore is a worthy boat
and seems to be loaded up with gimcracks and curios
of all classes and descriptions. A collector would
positively be squint-eyed with pleasure to see the
old vases, carved wood-work, plaques, knives, sabres,

87

88 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

pots and kettles that her passengers have picked up
all along the way ; and it is indeed the only method
by which to scour curios from the Orient. The boys
thought the Luneta was the best place in its way they
had yet seen, and it was as much as I could do to get
them away from listening to the artillery -band and
looking at the crowds of people in carriages. Three
men in a boat of the Sagamore's size make a pretty
small passenger-list for a pretty long voyage.

We've kept up our record as tripsters by having
gone again up into the mountains, seen pounds of
scenery, breathed fine air, and received great hospi-
tality from the natives. Monday was a bank-holiday,
so late on Saturday afternoon four of us started in
two-horse carromatas for a mountain village called
Montalvan, about twenty miles from Manila. Two
boys had been sent along a day ahead, with provisions
and bedding, to find a native hut and provide for our
arrival. We had a delightful drive out of Manila,
passed through numerous native villages, forded three
rivers, saw a fine sunset, and at about eight o'clock,
after a three hours' journey, pulled up at a little na-
tive house situated in a village at the foot of a lofty
mountain-range. The occupants seemed willing and
glad to turn out of their little shanty and put it at
our disposal, and we were very comfortable. The
house was not large, but it had a very neat little par-

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 89

lor — curious name for a room out here — and in the
corner, covered with a light bed-quilt, stood a wax
figure of the Virgin Mary, with the usual glass tears
running down her cheeks. The family of about four-
teen slept somewhere out in the rear regions of the
building, leaving us to spread out around the floor of
the little sola, like unmounted club sandwiches.

One of the party, more sensitive than the rest, woke
about one in the morning and disturbed us by find-
ing some four-inch spiders stringing cobwebs from
the end of his nose to his ear and down to one finger.
He was for the moment embarrassed enough to shout
for joy and throw his slippers somewhere. But ex-
cept for this, and a few rats that now and then tickled
our toes, we slept well, and next morning before
breakfast we went down to the shallow river for a
swim. After a jolly good bath, a hearty breakfast,
and a few preparations, our party of four, with
the two boys and two guides, started up a steep
valley that wound in among lofty mountains to the
so-called Caves of Montalvan.

One of our guides was the principal of a village
school, who held sway over a group of little Indian
girls under a big mango-tree, and he shut up shop to
join our expedition.

In about two hours and a half our caravan reached
the narrower defile that pierced two mountains which

90 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

came down hobnobbing together like a great gate,
grand and picturesque. From a large, quiet pool just
beneath the gates, we climbed almost straight up the
mouth of the stalactite caves that run no one knows
how far into the mountains, starting at a point about
two hundred feet above the river. The guides made
flare-torches of bamboos, and we .entered the damp
darkness, bounded by white limestone walls from
which hung beautiful stalactites that glistened as the
light struck them. In we went for a long way, now
crawling on hands and knees and now stumbling into
large vaulted chambers. Blind bats flew about and
water trickled. It was ghostly, uncanny, but inter-
esting. It seemed as if we were going into the very
heart of the mountain, or were reading " King Solo-
mon's Mines," and this impression was further carried
out when we came to a small subterranean river that
coursed down through a dark outlet and disappeared
with weird gurglings. Unpleasant but perhaps imag-
inary rumblings suggested that a sudden earth-
quake might easily block our exit, and, retracing our
steps, we breathed more freely on coming to the first
glimmer of light. Once more in the air, we descended,
took a good swim in the pool, lunched, and lay around
for an hour. After another bath later on, we donned
our sun-hats and trudged homeward over the long,
rough path. A good walk, a good supper, a little

a

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 91

dancing and music by the natives who occupied our
house, and we went to sleep upon the floor.

Next morning, after another early bath in the river,
our party started to climb the mountain back of the
town for a little experience in the bush. The work
wac hard and warm, but at the top came the reward
of a superb view for a hundred miles around. Manila
and the great plain, the bay and mountains beyond,
were glorious before us, and behind the great moun-
tain wilds that reached to the Pacific stretched off and
up in great overlapping slabs of heavy greenness.

The plain was cut up into the regulation checker-
board farms of the richest looking description, and
the scene was very much like an English one. Far
away at the edge of the Bay could be seen the glisten-
ing white houses and steeples of Manila. Away to
the northwest and southwest were the great fertile
stretches of country that produce tons and tons of
rice and sugar, reaching to the sky or distant moun-
tains. We had luncheon in a leafy grotto ; the guides
found water, and brought it in lengths of bamboo
which they cut down; deer ran past now and then
down below us, and a short siesta on a bed of leaves
finished off our morning's work. The return was so
steep that it seemed as if we should go heels over
head. However, we hung on to the long grass, and
painted our once white suits with dust in the effort to

92 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

reach level ground again. After a long descent, we
came to the big mango-tree where the rural school
was in session, and the little Filipinos were immediate-
ly given a recess. They rushed about, got benches
and water for us, and the old schoolmaster, who had
left his wife to do the teaching while he went with us,
set two or three of the shavers at work mopping off
his ebony skin. Our visit at the school was in the
order of an ovation. The children opened their al-
mond eyes almost to the extent of turning them into
circles, and when the camera was pointed at them for
the first time in their young lives, their mouths so far
followed suit that recitations had to be suspended.

After thoroughly disorganizing discipline in the es-
tablishment, we accompanied the half naked president
of the seminary — who had been our guide — to the
river, and there washed off such of the day's impres-
sions as went easily into solution.

And finally, after returning to our hut for tea, we
packed up our baskets, whistled for the carromatas
and jolted back to Manila through a flood of dust
and sunset.

Although the hot season is trying to do its best to
scorch us, it has but dismally succeeded, and we have
had scarcely any severe weather at all. The thunder-
showers, harbingers of the southwest monsoon and
the wet season, began two weeks ago, and it rains

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 93

now nearly every afternoon. The nights are all de-
lightfully cool, and a coverlet is always comfortable.
The sun is going well to the north to make hot
June and July days for people in the States, and our
season of light is growing shorter. When he gets
back overhead again, heavy clouds will protect us
from his attentions.

Owing to the outbreak of black plague or something
else among the Chinese in Hong Kong, the quarantine
regulations here in Manila will cause the steamer by
which I was going to send the mail to miss connec-
tions. It was at first reported there were three thou-
sand deaths in Hong Kong in six days, but I believe
they have now taken off one or two ciphers from that
amount. At all events Manila seems to be below the
zone of this peculiar epidemic and is much better
off at this time of the year than Hong Kong, which
swelters away in that great unventilated scoop in
the mountains.

The men of the big artillery-band that plays at
the Luneta twice a week have all been vaccinated
lately, and are too broken up to blow their trumpets.
The people are objecting, because the infantry band
doesn't make nearly as good music, and only plays
twice a week at most. The third regimental band is
still fighting the savage Moros with trombones down
at the south, although it is rumored they will soon

94

return, and so at present about all the music and
fireworks we have are derived from the thunder-
storms that play around the sheet-iron roofs as if
they meant business. But in spite of the terrific
cannonade of sound and the blinding flashes of light-
ning nothing seems to get hit, and the iron roofs may
act as dispersers of the electric fluid even though at-
tracting it.

June 6th.

Several days ago, a number of us went up the rail-
road line to see a " fiesta " at a little village called
Obando. It was a religious observance lasting three
days, and pilgrims from many villages thought it
their duty to go there on foot. A great dingy old
church with buttressed walls yards thick, a large
plaza shaded by big trees, and beyond, on all sides,
the native houses. Such a crowd I have rarely seen.
Everybody seemed to think it his duty to dance;
and men, women, old men and children, mothers
with babies and papas with kids, shouted, jumped
around, danced, joggled each other, and rumpussed
about until they were blue in the face, dripping with
heat, and covered with dust. Then they would stop
and another crowd take up the play. As the circus
proceeded the crowds increased ; the old church was
packed with worshippers who brought candles, and,
receiving a blessing, spent an hour or so on the

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 95

stone pavements in positions of contrite humility.
Around the walls of the church were placed realistic
paintings of the chromo order, representing hell and
the river Styx, and as the natives looked at portraits
of devils driving nails into the heads of the torment-
ed, of sulphurous flames that licked the cheeks of
the wicked in this world, or serpents that twined
themselves into square knots around the chests of a
dozen unfortunates, and of countless horned demons
who plucked out the heartstrings of the condemned,
they counted their beads with renewed vigor and
mumbled long prayers.

Countless little booths stood like mushrooms
round about outside, and cheap jewellery, made in
Germany, found ready sale. The dancing and shout-
ing increased as the sun sank in the west, until the
ground fairly shook and the dust arose in vast clouds.
Around the edge of the church, under the porticoes,
slept sections of the multitude who were preparing
themselves to take part in the proceedings when
others were tired out. It was a motley crowd, a
motley scene, and an unforgettable collection of per-
fumes.

We left after a few hours' stay, and got back to
Manila to find water a foot deep in some of the
streets, as a result of one of the tropical thunder-
storms which have now begun in real earnest. And

96 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

speaking of rain, everything is looking fresh and
green, now that the dusty days of the hot season are
a thing of the past. All the bamboo-trees have
leafed out anew, flowering shrubs have taken life,
and all nature seems to have had a bath.

One of the most showy trees in Manila is the arbol
defuego (fire-tree) and this product of nature resem-
bles a large oak in general and a full-blown Japanese
cherry blossom in particular. Many of the streets in
the city are bordered with groups of these fire-trees,
of large and stately dimensions, and at present they
are simply one mass of huge flaming red blossoms
growing thickly together and showing a wonderful
fire-like carnation color. Scarcely any leaves make
their appearance on these trees during the season of
blossom, and although now and then bits of green
look out from the mass of red, yet the general effect
is a vast blaze of burning color.

We have left our country house on the hills of Santa
Mesa, and have moved down to a little villa on the
seacoast. The third man of our party, like many of
his brother Englishmen who are burdened with small
salaries but large debit balances, has at last decided
to save money and room at his office. The house had
too many regular boarders in the form of rats and
snakes, was too large and too far off for the two of
us left, and we decided to make a move to the sea-

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 97

shore district. Our army of servants successfully
solved the transportation problems involved, and
we are now settled in new quarters. Although we
miss the view of the mountains, and even the paddy-
fields, we now get the salt air first hand, look out over
the waters of the Bay, and are lulled to sleep by the
rhythmic beating of the waves on the beach. Our
view seaward leads the eye across a beautiful garden
belonging to one of the rich house-owners living
directly on the shore front, and the green of the
trees, with" the scent of somebody else's flowers,
temper both the excess of glare and the brackish
qualities of the sea-breeze.

In Malate, where we now are, things are much
civilized. We find we miss the snakes in the roof,
but we have running water in the house and a
shower-bath in the bath-room ; two rooms on the first
floor; a parlor, two bed-rooms, dining-room, large
hallway, kitchen, bath and "boys'" rooms on the
second floor ; a small garden at the front and a stable
at the back, and all included in a rent of $15 a
month. The stable accommodates two ponies, and
it is a jolly drive down-town in the morning or home
in the evening. The road leads all the way along by
the sea, Luneta, and Malecon Promenade, that runs
under the yawning mouths of the old muzzle-loaders
in front of the grim walls of the old city, between

98 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

them and the beach. The salt-water bath in the
early morning is often very pleasant, though the tem-
perature of the liquid is somewhat too high to be
exhilarating. Now and then some of the Britons
living in the neighborhood will issue a summons
for a sunrise swimming-party, and one of them will
perhaps punctuate the ceremonies by supplying a
typical breakfast of fresh fish and boiled rice, on
the veranda of a house that perhaps overlooks the
Bay. These seaside houses are particularly cool
and fresh now that the winds of the southwest mon-
soon come blowing into the front windows directly
off the water, but later on, when typhoons become
epidemic, it looks as if we should have the wind in
more than wholesale doses.

June 12th.

Although the San Francisco steamer does not sail
for Hong Kong until the 21st, it is necessary, on ac-
count of this quarantine business, to post our letters
in the Manila office to-day.

Two of our latest vessels have come in together and
begun to take in their cargoes of hemp for Boston.
The captains are ruddy-faced veterans who seem to
have taken part in the Civil War. One of them, who
wears false teeth when he is ashore, and hails from
New Hampshire, is particularly fond of cooling off
under our big punka. The other may be of French

o.

Q.

O

O

o
O

1
o

YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 99

descent, though he comes from Ireland, and looks
something like one of our distinguished Boston
statesmen. They both climb up the stairs to our
counting-room daily, call our big clock a " time de-
stroyer " and so vie with each other in their efforts
to handle the truth carelessly that it is often a ques-
tion who comes off victor in these verbal contests.
However, the skipper with the false ivories generally
fails to get the last word, for he often loses his suc-
tion power by fast talking, and has to leave off to
prevent his teeth from slipping down his oesoph-
agus. Once again the air in the office assumes a
nautical aroma, and we shall be well employed and
well talked to death. A whole parcel of American
ships are now about due, and the Bay will liven up
again with the Stars and Stripes as it did some two
months ago.

It rains every afternoon now, at about a quarter past
three, and just after tiffin is over we begin to look
for the thunder-clouds that predict the coming shower.
The other day a huge waterspout formed out in the
Bay, swirled along, gyrated about, scooted squarely
through the shipping, and broke on the beach between
our house and the Luneta. The cloud effects were
extremely curious, and the whole display was a num-
ber not generally down on the day's programme.

The company who are putting in the new electric

100 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

lights seem to be doing good work, and it is expected
that everything will be running by the end of the
year. So far, Manila has been favored only with the
dull light given by petroleum, previously brought out
from New York, or over from China, and, curiously
enough, the empty tins in which the oil has come
seem to be almost as valuable as their contents. They
are used here for about everything under the sun, the
natives cover their roofs with tin from these sources,
and some of those more musically inclined even make
a petroleum can up into a trombone or cornet.

Our house by the sea continues to prove very pleas-
ant, and, peculiarly enough, the surf seems to beat on
the beach with the same sound that it has on the New
England coast. The southwest breeze blows strong
from the Bay each afternoon, and the cumulus clouds
are becoming heavier and more numerous day by day.
The artillery-band still favors us with music at the
Luneta, but before long it looks as if the rains would
interrupt the afternoon promenade.

The black plague at Hong Kong does not seem
to diminish, as was expected, and it is said that many
people are leaving the city. All steamers coming
from that port to this suffer a fortnight's quarantine
down the Bay, and, if the difficulty continues much
longer, Manila markets will be destitute of two of
their chief staples — mutton and potatoes — both of

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 101

which have to come across from China, or down from
Japan. And speaking of sheep, Captain Tayler, of
the Esmeralda, has had another of his usual inter-
esting experiences with the custom-house. Just as
his vessel, fresh from quarantine and Hong Kong,
had been visited by the doctor, on her way to her
berth some distance up the river, one of the sheep
died. Rule number something-or-other in the Code
of the Sanidad says that anything or anybody dying
during the day must be buried before sundown,
under penalty, for neglect, of $50. Rule number
something-else in the Customs Code, however, says
that the captain of any vessel turning out cargo
short or in excess of the amount called for by the
manifest shall be fined $100 for each piece too
many or too little. If my good friend, the Captain,
buried the sheep, he would be fined $100 at the cus-
tom-house for short out-turn. If he didn't bury it,
the Board of Health would come down on him for
$50, for neglecting regulations. The Captain, being
a wise man, decided that it was more politic to be in
the right with the doctor than with the officials at
the custom-house, and at some considerable ex-
pense sent the sheep on shore and had it buried
with due honors. He could not have thrown it into
the river, for this would have been to incur an addi-
tional fine. Next morning, he presented the ship's

102 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

manifest and a sheep's tail at the custom-house and
the discharge of the live stock was begun. But,
tail or no tail, the officials found the ship one sheep
short and the Esmeralda was fined $100. Not quite
so barefaced as the swindling of the poor skipper
who came over from China with a load of paving-
stones for Manila's Street Department. His vessel
turned out seven paving-stones too many, and the
fine was $700.

In the language of Daniel Webster, I " refrain from
saying " that a few dollars or a good dinner, bestowed
upon the right person, in Manila, often go a long way
toward throwing some official off the scent in his
hungry search for irregularity, but am willing to admit
that, in dealing with customs men who frequently
" examine " cases of champagne by drinking up the
contents of a bottle from each one in order to see
that the liquid is not chloroform or cologne, one must
keep his purse full, his talk cool, and his temper on
ice.

June 25, 1894

Last Monday was the monthly bank-holiday again,
and three of us had previously decided to take a jour-
ney southward for the purpose of seeing one of
Luzon's active volcanoes and getting a little change
of air and "chow."

So, late on Saturday afternoon, we went aboard a

YESTEKDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 103

dirty little steamer, which was to take us ninety miles
down the coast. She wasn't as big as a good-sized
tug and was laden with multicolored natives, who
were on their way back to the provinces after a brief
shopping expedition to the capital. We were soon
sailing out past the fleet of larger vessels in the
Bay, with our dull prow pointed to the mouth of
the great inclosed body of water. At nightfall we
reached the Corregidor light-house, at the Bay's en-
trance, and thence our course lay to the south. At
half-past two that night our craft reached a place
called Taal. During our trip down we had become
acquainted with a very pleasant Indian sugar-plant-
er, who is as well off in dollars as rich in hospitality.
At Taal he took us to one of the three big houses
he owns, and, although only three o'clock in the
morning, gave us a delicious breakfast. We talked
and chatted away comfortably, and as the first streaks
of dawn appeared I played several appropriate se-
lections on one of the two very good-toned pianos
belonging to his establishment. This brought out his
family, and before we set out for the river from which
our start to the volcano was to be made, quite a social
gathering was in progress.

The natives all through the islands seemed indeed
most courteous and hospitable to foreigners, and
although a Spaniard hesitates to show his face out-

104 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

side of any of the garrison towns, yet any of the other
European bipeds is known in a minute and well treated.
Our good friend at Taal went so far as to harness up
a pair of ponies and drive us down to the river at four
o'clock in the morning, and we found a large banca,
previously ordered, waiting to take us up to the Lake
of Taal and across to the volcano.

Our banca was of good size, was rowed by
seven men and steered by one, and had a little
thatched hen-coop arrangement over the stern, to keep
the sun off our heads. We had brought one " boy "
with us from Manila, with enough " chow " to last for
two days, and soon all was stowed away in our floating
tree-trunk. The river was shallow, and for most of
the six miles of its length poles were the motive-
power. It was slow work, and both wind and current
were hostile. In due course, however, the lake came
into view, and in its centre rose the volcano, smoking
away like a true Filipino. The wind was now
blowing strong and unfavorable, and we saw that it
was not going to be an easy row across the six or
seven miles of open water to the centre island. But
the men worked with a will, and although the choppy
waves slopped over into our roost once or twice so
jocosely that it almost seemed as if we should have to
turn back, we kept on. Benefitting by a lull or two,
our progress was gradual, and at half after twelve,

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 105

seven hours from Taal, we landed on the volcanic
island and prepared for an ascent.

The lake of Taal is from fifteen to twenty miles
across, is surrounded by high hills and mountains,
for the most part, and has for its centre the volcanic
island upon whose edges rise the sloping sides of an
active cone a thousand feet high. The lake is cer-
tainly good to look at, reminding one forcibly of
Loch Lomond, and the waters, shores, and moun-
tains around all seem to bend their admiring gaze on
the little volcano in its centre.

Filling our water-jug, we set off up the barren lava-
slopes of this nature's safety-valve, sweltering under
the stiff climb in the hot sun. Happily, the view bet-
tered each moment, the smell of the sulphur became
stronger, and we forgot present discomfort in anticipa-
tions of the revelation to come. After banging our
shins on the particularly rough lava-beds of the as-
cent, near the top, we saw a great steaming crater
yawning below us and sending up clouds of sulphur-
ous steam. In the centre of this vast, dreary Circus
Maximus rose a flat cone of red-hot squashy material,
and out of it ascended the steam and smoke. All
colors of the rainbow played with each other in the
sun, and farther to the right was a boiling lake of
fiery material that was variegated enough to suit an
Italian organ-grinder.

106 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

It was all very weird, and if we liad not been so
lazy we should probably have descended farther into
this laboratory of fire than we did. But it was too
hot to make matches of ourselves and the air smelt
like the river Styx at low tide. So we were con-
tented with a good view of the wonders of the vol-
cano from a distance, enjoyed the panorama from
the narrow encircling apex-ridge, and cooled off in
the smart breeze. Once more at the lake, and it
was not long before we were in it, tickling our feet
on the rough cinders of the bottom. The bath was
most rejuvenating after a hot midday climb, and
just to sit in the warmish water up to one's neck
gave one a sort of mellow feeling like that presum-
ably possessed by a ripe apple ready to fall on the
grass.

The wind was now fresher than ever and more un-
favorable to our course. The captain of the tree-
trunk, in a tone quite as authoritative as that manip-
ulated by the commander of an ocean liner, said we
could not proceed for some time, so the boy arranged
the provisions and we had a meal in our little hen-
coop. After a provoking wait until four o'clock the
old banco, was pushed off again and the struggle re-
newed. The seven men, who had now been poling
and rowing since early morning, seemed pretty well
beat, but there was no shelter on the volcanic islands

_b«

J?

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 107

and we had to push on. The other shore looked far
away and we slopped forward sluggishly. The sun
set, the moon rose, and still we were buffeting with
the choppy waves. It reminded me a good deal of
the sea of Galilee ; and it did seem as if the dickens
himself was blowing at us and trying to keep us from
ever getting to that farther shore.

At last we reached the lee of a lofty perpendicular
island part way across the lake, and, although its
upright sides offered no chance to land, yet they kept
off that southeast wind. The men shut their teeth
hard, and in due course moved our bark around the
point and out into more moonlight and breeze. The
lights and shadows on the great lump of rock standing
a thousand feet out of the water behind us were worth
looking at, and in many places huge basaltic columns
seemed to be holding up the mass above. Not to
put as much labor into these lines as our men put
into the oars, at half after ten we came to land,
seven hours from the shore of the volcano, a dis-
tance which in fair wind ought to be covered in a lit-
tle over one.

On shore there seemed to be about four huts, two
pig-sties, and nothing more. Stared at by a crowd
of natives whom our arrival suddenly incubated from
somewhere, and who swarmed down to see who we
were, we talked with our boatman, but only succeeded

108 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

in finding out that we had come to a place not down
on the map or on the highroad to the next village
whither we were bound. It was simply a collection
of huts, children, and pigs, situated at the lake's edge
and connected with the outer world by a foot-path
that led up over the hills eight miles to the nearest
pueblo. To walk those eight miles at eleven o'clock
was out of the question, and to sleep in one of those
little dirty huts ashore was just as bad. The crowd
of natives had grown, and so, to avoid being over-
run with the eminently curious, we pushed off from
shore and anchored out in the lake, to eat a little
" chow " and decide what to do. Weariness tempered
our decision, which was to sleep where we were, in the
banco,, under the hen-coop, and, having made it known
to our trusty but hard-looking crew, they fell down
like shots and, in less than a minute, were asleep in
all sorts of jackstraw positions. One slept on the
oars, another on the poles, a third on our collec-
tion of volcanic rocks, a fourth in the bottom of the
boat, a fifth sitting up, and a sixth — I don't know
where.

We three lay down side by side in the little cooped-
over roost, and found there was just room to reside like
sardines in a box. Our feet were out under the stars
at one side, our heads at the other, and there we
were, and there we slept, in an unknown wilderness.

YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 109

Though no one could change his position we all rested
fairly well, and nothing happened to mar the beauty
of the night. As the sun reddened the east, feeling
more like awakened chickens than anything else, we
packed up, paid out some of the heavy dollars, that
made each of us feel like sinkers on a fish-line, and
loaded what little luggage we had upon a bony pony
ashore. Adieus were said to the lake and to our crew,
and our little caravan started up a broad foot-path for
the village of Tanauan, about eight miles away. It
was a long walk, on no refreshment save a night's
sleep in a hen-coop, but after passing over hills and
dales, by nipa huts of all sizes and descriptions,
and after being stared at by curious natives, we
arrived at our destination, a good-sized village, in
two and a half hours. We responded to an invitation
of the captain of the pueblo, to take possession of his
house, and got up a very decent breakfast out of our
fast depleting stock. The old captain treated us most
cordially, and after a three-hours' stay helped us to
load ourselves and our chattels aboard two stout-
wheeled, carromatas each hitched to two ponies.

Off again, once more, our course was shaped over-
land toward the other great lake up back of Manila,
by which the return was to be made. The road was
fearful, the ruts two feet deep in places, and the bad
sections far more numerous than the good pieces.

110 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

We got stuck in the mud, had to pry our conveyances
and the ponies out, and I fear did not enjoy the beau-
ties of the rather tame scenery on the way. At last
the crest of a hill brought the Laguna de Bay in sight,
and in less than an hour we reached the village of
Calamba, on its shores. A shabby little native house
was put at our disposal after we boldly walked up
and took possession of it ; a swarm of children were
shoved out of the one decent room, and in a short
time our boy was giving us canned turtle-soup and
herrings. In the afternoon we merely lounged about
the town and took a swim in the lake, while in the
evening, early after the very good little dinner got-
ten up by our servant there was nothing to do but to
turn in, even though the house was surrounded by the
curious, who had looked in at the windows to watch
people dining with knives, forks, plates, and napkins.
The floor of our room was of bamboo slats, just
below whose many openings were four fighting-cocks
and when bed-time came we were tired enough to
tumble down on the canes just as we stood. The
cock who sang out of tune woke us at about sunrise
Tuesday morning, and after one more swim in the
lake we packed up our traps and prepared ourselves
to take the Httle Manila steamer that left at eight
o'clock on its thirty-mile return trip. The sail down
the lake and into the Pasig Biver was cool, delightful,

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 111

and without incident, and at noon Tuesday we pulled
up at the wharf at Manila, having completed an
almost perfect circle of travel one hundred and fifty
miles in circumference, to be heartily congratulated
on having successfully made a trip which few per-
form but many covet. My own cane sleeping ma-
chine seemed good again after hen-coops and bamboo
floors, and smooth roads and civilization far better
than ruts and rickety carromatas.

VI

First Storm of the Rainy Season— Fourth of July— Chinese " Chow "
Dogs— Crullers and Pie and a Chinese Cook — A Red-Letter Day
— The China- Japan War — Manila Newspapers — General Blanco
and the Archbishop — An American Fire-Engine and its Lively
Trial— The Coming of the Typhoon — Violence of the Wind —
The Floods Next — Manila Monotony.

July 4th.

THE mails have been badly snarled up lately, and
although nobody has received any letters for nearly
two weeks, none are expected for about ten days.
The other morning began the first real storm of the
rainy season, and we came very near having a bad
typhoon, but someone turned the switch, and it swirled
up the back coast on the Pacific side and crossed
through a notch in the mountains, some distance
to the north of Manila, giving the city only four
days of monstrous winds and floods of rain. The
streets were two feet deep with water in the business
section, and down at our house by the sea the wind
blew so hard that it carried the tin from our roof off
to visit the next suburb. Then it was that those
sturdy windows of small sea-shells set into hardwood

lattice seemed far more secure than glass, and I

112

YESTEKDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 113

doubt if anything less well constructed would have
stood the blast that surged in from the broad bay.

Going down-town in the morning, my carriage was
slid clean across the road by the force of the wind,
and once it seemed as if I might be lifted up into
the low clouds that scudded close to the tops of the
bamboo-trees. Huge seas came tumbling ashore on
the beach, and the vessels in the great exposed Bay
had all they could do to hang to their anchors, as
the surf sometimes dashed as high as their lower
foreyards.

The natives never carry umbrellas in the rain, but
march along and do not seem to mind getting wet to
the skin. They do indeed look bedraggled in their
thin clothes, that cling like sticking-plaster, and it
seems as if they would get the fever. During the
present blow, the single pony hitched to a tram-car
often found his load moving him astern, and it was
only by leaving the whole car wide open, so that the
air could have free passage through from end to end
and side to side, that he now and then made head-
way against the blast. This was not pleasant for
the passengers, but made less demand on the motive-
power. The bands at the Luneta have played when
they got a chance, but the wind howls in from the
Bay, as a rule, louder than the tunes bowl out of
their brass instruments.

114 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

To-day seems to be the Glorious Fourth, and my
colleague and I have just come back from the ship-
ping, where the Captain of the Helen Brewer asked
us to eat a celebrative dinner. All the ships in the
Bay were dressed with flags, and the Brewer, which
possessed more than her share, had a long line
stretched from the bowsprit over the three masts
down to the stern. Everybody was interested in
the feast, and the Captain with the false teeth, who
comes from New Hampshire, sent over a goose and
some mince-pies. Eight of us sat down in the cozy
saloon and partook of a meal altogether too hearty
for the climate. The day was cool and overcast, and
we spent a lazy afternoon on deck, listening to yarns
told by two old salts who seemed to have had more
than their share of wrecks, typhoons, and other ad-
ventures.

When we came ashore, at about sunset, there was
gathered up from the remains of the feast the " seven
basketsful," and we each went back in the launch,
decorated with a bag of doughnuts under one arm
and a bag of mince-pies under the other.

One of our small family of dogs was run over by the
tram-car the other morning, in front of the house, and
now rests in peace in a little grave down on the beach,
hard by the rhythmic cadence of the waves. His
little brother, who was suffering at the time from the

CQ

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 115

distemper, was so grieved at the loss that he too
speedily faded away, and now lies close beside the
other victim of circumstances. On the tombstone is
a touching epitaph:

" Pompey and Nettie, here they lie ;
Born to live, they had to die.
The wheels of fate ran over one,
The other was by grief undone."

Most of the large army of dogs that make a Manila
night hideous are of that mongrel order, which is al-
ways looking for something to eat, but now and then
one sees a good many of the so-called Chinese
" chow "-dogs about the streets, and with their black
tongues, long hair, and peculiar bushy tails that curl
sharply up over their backs, they are quite as interest-
ing, as unaffectionate. Over in China they make very
good eating up to the age of three months, and from
this fact derive the "chow" part of their name. Al-
though they are very susceptible to changes of local-
ity and climate, we are now making negotiations to
have one brought over to take the place of the dear
departed eulogized above. And later, I may even
try the experiment of having one for Sunday dinner —
if he doesn't make a good pet.

The doughnuts which I brought home from the
Brewer have proved very interesting to my cook, and
I have been obliged to count them each day for

116 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

purposes of security. He now watches me closely
as I make away with one or two for breakfast, to see
just what effect these marvellous looking " fried holes "
have on my intellect. I notice he looks to see if
there are any crumbs left, from which he might
gather an inkling as to the composition of these
curios ; but so far there haven't been any crumbs. As
he is cooking for us now, instead of the Chinese gen-
tleman that we originally had, this curiosity is but nat-
ural, and some day he will probably try to furnish us
with the native-made article. In fact he has already
tried the experiment of concocting a mince-pie after
the general appearance of one of the earlier donations
made by a captain in the Bay, and the result was
worthy of description. As I arranged to measure
the original pie after each meal, before locking it up
in our safe, in order to protect it from disappearing,
my faithful cook could only guess as to its composition
by sundry glances from afar. But being of an inven-
tive mind he conceived the idea of chopping up some
well-done roast beef, mixing with it some sugar and
raisins, roofing it over with a thatch of pastry, and
serving it for dessert. And then as we came to the
course in question he stood in the doorway waiting for
our verdict. His effort was worthy of all praise, but
his pie was damnable, and pieces of it went sailing
out the windows.

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 117

July 28th.

On the 20th instant a steamer arrived from Hong
Kong, and had the honor of being the first vessel to
come in from that port in thirty days. She was sup-
posed to have three American mails aboard, but it
turned out that they were down to arrive by the
vessel coming in six days later. I came to the office
the other morning, and looking toward my desk,
found it almost invisible. It looked as if somebody
in the neighborhood were the editor of a paper, and
as if all the spring poets in the universe had sent
their manuscripts for inspection. The desk groaned
beneath the bulky chaos of three mails from the
United States, delayed in transmission by the black
plague, and fumigated together down the bay. But no
sooner had we gotten through the first course of an
epistolary feast than the captain of a large four-
masted ship shuffled into the room and deposited a
huge pot of steaming baked beans, just fresh from
his steward's galley-stove, on the table. What with
beans, letters, magazines, and comic papers, it might
be said our day was a red-letter one.

The other day my colleague and I took dinner off
aboard the Nagato Maru, a smart steamer just in
from Japan, and captained by an American who
knows what it is to set a good table. It seems that
the China-Japan war has actually broken out in all

118 YESTEEDATS IN THE PHILIPPINES

its glory, and as there is a vague rumor that a Chi-
nese war-ship is waiting outside to capture this very
same steamer, she is going to stay here for awhile.

The Japanese have sunk several Chinese transport
ships already, and one of the unfortunate craft used
to come here to Manila. In other directions the
Chinese are said to have beaten the Japs badly on
land, but over in this slow old moth-eaten place the
daily papers will publish cablegrams from Spain by
the page, that give out nothing but official stuff and
Government appointments; and when it comes to
something of real interest, like a war, they will either
be without any news whatever, or tell the whole story
wrong side out in a single line, that may or may not
be true. And so you are probably getting better
news of this whole affair, twelve thousand miles away,
than we are, who are almost on the field of action.

Our Manila papers consist of four pages, the first
two of which are especially reserved for advertise-
ments. Half of one of the inside leaves is likewise
reserved, and the remaining half is covered with
blocks full of gloomy sentiments which relate to the
decease of this or that person. There is a little black
frame of type around each square, and at the top is
a cross, with a "R. I. P." or "D. O. M." under it.
Below comes the name of the defunct, with hour,
minute, day, and year of his birth and death, and be-

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 119

low his virtues are extolled and his friends invited
to pray for the repose of his soul. Every year, each
person that has died the year before has his anniver-
sary, both in church and in the newspapers ; and
when you recollect that out of a population of 350,000
a good many depart each twelvemonth, it is hard to
see why the whole paper shouldn't consist of these
notices. The other inside page contains the news,
and we learn that a bad odor has been discovered up
some side-street ; that a dog fell into the river and
was drowned ; that a perfumery store has received a
new kind of liquefied scent ; that it will probably rain
in some part of the island during the day ; and that
the band on the Luneta ought not to be frightened
off merely by a few drops that fall from some passing
cloud. And so it goes until the French or English
mail comes in, and then the progressive dailies copy
all the news they can find, out of the foreign papers,
and serve it up cold, cet. one month.

I met General Blanco, Governor of the islands, the
other evening, and he seemed to enjoy the good music
and good supper which one of our popular bank-man-
agers and his wife provided for some of us in the col-
ony on the occasion of a birthday. He is an elderly
man, and kindly, and appears milder in disposition
than would seem advisable for one occupying so
important a position. I should think he might let

120 YESTEKDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

some of those sharp-eyed little ministers of his run
him, and he appears almost too modest, too kind-
hearted, to be the ruler that he is. Suffice to say the
General is modest in dress and modest in manner.
He often walks up and down the Malecon promenade
by the Bay in the afternoon, saluting everyone that
passes, and when the vesper bells ring out the hour
of prayer from one of the old churches inside the city
walls he stops, removes his tall gray stove-pipe and,
as do a host of other pedestrians, bows his head. To
tell the truth he has little of the Spanish aspect about
him and is just the kind of a man one would go up
and speak to on the Teutonic or Campania. In sharp
contrast is he to the Archbishop, who drives about
behind his fine white horses and looks as keen as
well-nourished. But who knows! Appearances are
deceitful, and foolish he who trusts to them.

August llth.

Two steamers have just come in from Hong Kong
and are tied up in quarantine down at Marivelis, at the
mouth of the Bay. The mail ought to be here in
forty-eight hours, but two days is a very short time
to give Manila postal authorities, for they really are
slow enough to desire four — one in which to make up
their minds to send a launch, two in which to go,
three in which to come back, and four in which to

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 121

distribute the results of their camphorated fumiga-
tion.

The most noteworthy thing that has happened in
the way of excitement since the last mail was the
operating of the new American fire-engine, which we
imported from the States for the wealthy proprietor
of our hemp-press, who is part Spaniard, part native,
and part Chinese. It seems he was up in our office
one day, and on the centre-table saw a catalogue con-
taining pictures of a collection of our modern fire-
fighters. He asked what those things were, and, on
being told that they were used to put out fires, said
he wanted one at once, the biggest we could get him,
in order that he might reduce the insurance he was
paying on his large store-houses and still go on col-
lecting the premiums from those whose goods were in
his charge.

Although ours is an exporting business, and we do
not know much about fire-engines, yet the occasion
seemed auspicious, the prospect of payment sure, and
the outlook interesting. The result was that we for-
warded the order to New York by the first mail, and
the other day, after four months of waiting, the pieces
of the big engine came over on the Esmeralda, in big
cases. They were very heavy, and the natives began
the exhibition by nearly dropping the boiler into the
river as they attempted to hoist it into a lighter. To

122 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

skip over the difficulties which were encountered in
hoisting the cases onto the quay in front of the offices
of our well-to-do purchaser, we come to the men-
tal hardships that were encountered in putting the
machine together ; for no one in Manila had ever seen
a Yankee fire-engine before, and although we had a
full description of the complicated mechanism, with
drawings of the parts, and numbers where each piece
was to fit onto some other piece, there was no one in
town who could help us much in getting it into work-
ing order.

Fortunately, the hemp business was dull and my
colleague and I were thus enabled to give more atten-
tion to this Chinese puzzle than if the fibre market
had been booming. The red wheels with gold stripes
were the first thing to be adjusted, and the eyes of
the onlookers who happened to be strolling up and
down the quay opened to large dimensions as the
covering was stripped from the nickel-plated boiler
and the process of establishment went on. At last
the big machine was on its feet, with valves and gear
adjusted, and with the slight assistance which we got
from a Spanish engineer who knew something about
marine machinery, we found out that the whistle
ought not to be screwed onto the safety-valve.

Several Englishmen who happened to come by in
the early stages of our efforts made sarcastic com-

•s 2

3 Z*
_r^ r, r*

YESTEKDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 123

ments on the appearance of our new toy, and could
not see how an affair with so much gold paint on the
wheels and so much nickel on the boiler was going
to work successfully. But we did not say much,
since we were well occupied in trying to find out the
proper way to fill the boiler. Someone suggested
pouring the water down the whistle, and so, mounted
on a step-ladder, one to us began the interesting ex-
periment. The water seemed to run in all right, as
it gurgled down through the pipes, and did not leak
out of the bottom. As there did not seem to be any
other loophole to the boiler, we concluded this must
be the right method, and took turns for an hour in
emptying the contents of an old kerosene tin into the
whistle-valve.

Next, with great trepidation, we started a fire in
the grate, and were rejoiced to see that the new en-
gine was soon fuming away like an old veteran. It
quite spruced us up to hear the fire crackle under the
boiler ; but our heads became even more swelled when
steam enough was generated to tickle the feed-pump
into taking care of all the vacant lots in the boiler-
tubes.

When our friend Don Capitan found that the en-
gine was going to work and knew its business, he
said we must have a big trial and let all Manila
see the show. To this end he sent around printed

124 YESTEBDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

programmes of what was going to take place, to
all the prominent people in the city — for he was an
Alderman, by the way — inviting them to inspect
the working of the engine and partake of a collation
afterward in the spacious buildings of the hemp-
press.

Wednesday, the fatal day, arrived, and the great
American fire-engine stood out on the quay glisten-
ing in the sun, the centre of an admiring crowd of
open-mouthed natives. The Englishmen in the back-
ground rather put their heads together and shook
them the wrong way, as they often do at anything
American, but the natives allowed their lower lips to
drop from overwhelming admiration. Everybody
was curious, and all were expectant, from the small
kids dressed in nothing but the regulation Philippine
undershirt, who played shinney with the coal for the
boiler and looked down the hose-nozzle, to Don Cap-
itan himself, who went around shaking by the hands
all the high and mighty officials who had come to
see his latest freak. My associate and I felt fairly
important as we gruffly ordered the police to clear
the ground for action and blew the whistle to scare
the audience. The huge suction-hose was run into
the river, and our host made his pet servant jump
in after it to hold the strainer out of the mud. Ten
natives were stationed at the nozzle of the four-inch

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 125

hose, which was pointed up the small plaza running
back from the quay, and while I poked up the fire
to give us a little impressive smoke, Band rang the
bell and turned on steam.

The affair worked admirably, and the big stream
of yellow water went so far as to gently soak down a
lot of baled tobacco that was lying on a street-corner
at the next block, supposedly beyond reach. The
owner of the tobacco, thinking that a thunder-storm
had struck the town, came to the door of his office,
just behind, to see what was up, and, as the engine
suddenly began to work a little better, the stream of
water somehow knocked him over and played around
the entrance to his storehouse. At the rate things
were going it looked as if the exhibition would prove
expensive and, to avoid diplomatic complications, we
shut off steam long enough to shift the hose over for
a more unobstructed spurt along the river.

In a few moments after the change had been made
an open throttle made a truly huge torrent belch
from the long nozzle with such force as to make the
ten hose-men feel decidedly nervous, but it did not
stop them from turning the stream toward a lighter
which was being polled down the Pasig by two
Malays. The foremost was washed backward into
the lighter, and the hindmost swept off into the river
as if he had been a cockroach. A Chinaman who was

126 YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

paddling a load of vegetables to the Esmeralda in a
hollow tree-trunk suffered the same fate. He and his
greens were swished out of the banco, in an instant,
and he found himself sitting on his inverted craft
floating helplessly down-stream.

Then suddenly, as we opened the throttle to the
last notch, the hose-men, in their excitement to wet
some coolies loading hemp, far up the quay, tried to
turn the torrent back onto the pavement, but, with
its force of fifteen hundred gallons to the minute,
it was too quick for them, and with one mighty
" kerchug " broke away to send the nozzle flying
around like a mill-wheel. Before they knew what
struck them the ten men holding the nozzle were
knocked prostrate, and two small boys in under-
shirts, who were playing around in the mud-puddles
near by, were whisked off into the river like so
much dust. A dozen lightning wriggles of the
hose, and the frenzied cataract shot a third boy
through the wire door into the office of our friend,
Don Capitan. Inside the door, on a wooden settee,
were sitting some of the family servants holding their
infants, and the same stream on which the boy
travelled through the door washed the whole party,
settee and all, across the hallway into a heap at the
foot of the stairs.

Outside, the audience stampeded, and the man in

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 127

the river, holding on to the suction hose, had hard
work to prevent being drawn up through the strainer
and pumped out the other end in fragments. All
this took place in a quarter of the time it takes to tell
of it, and events followed each other in such quick
succession that the hose had started to turn over
on its back and charge on the engine before one
of us rushed in to shut off steam. The two boys
washed into the river were fished out more dead
than alive, but more frightened than hurt, and the
native Philippine policeman on duty at the front
arrested them promptly for daring to be drowned.
The boy blown through the screen-door had his ear
badly torn, and was likewise arrested for not entering
the house in a more civilized manner. The natives
nursed their bare feet stepped on in the rush ; the
Englishmen, who had been sarcastic several days
before, said nothing ; but the Spaniards asked where
the collation was, and, waterlogged though they were,
began to eat like good ones. The policeman marched
the three boys in undershirts to the station-house, and
next morning the daily newspapers devoted more space
than was usual in describing the wonderful machinery
that came from America, for the benefit of their read-
ers, who, like that English dude of old, " didn't weahl-
ly dweam that so much wattah could come out of
such a wehwey diminootive-looking affaiah."

128 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

Otherwise, in Manila we are now enjoying the so-
called veranillo, or little summer, which every year
comes along about the middle of August, and which
consists of two or three weeks of cool, pleasant
weather, that comes between the rains of July and
the typhoon season of September. And fine weather
it is, with a jolly breeze blowing in from the China
Sea all day, with delightful afternoons, moonlight
nights, and fresh mornings.

September 20th.

There has been no opportunity to start letters off
for the other side of the globe since the early days of
the present month, on account of a typhoon which
has visited our fair capital, and which has so de-
layed steamers that all connections seem to have
been scattered to the four winds. I have long been
waiting to become acquainted with one of these
aerial disturbances, and at last the meteorological
monotony has been broken.

Early in this eventful week, warnings came from
our most excellent observatory, run by the Jesuit
priests, that trouble was brewing down in the Pacific
to the south and east, and by Friday signal No. 1 of
the danger system was displayed on the flagstaff of
the look-out tower. The news about the storm was
indefinite, but the villain was supposed to be slowly
moving northwest, headed directly for Manila. Sat-

YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 129

urday up went signal No. 2, and in the afternoon No.
3, and by evening No. 4. Still everything was calm
and peaceful, and Sunday morning dawned pleasant
but for the exception of a dull haze. Early in the
afternoon up went signal No. 5, which means that
things are getting pretty bad, and which is not far
from No. 8, the worst that can be hoisted.

Everybody now began to get ready for the invis-
ible monster. All the steamers and ships in the river
put out extra cables, and the vessels in the Bay ex-
tra anchors. No small craft of any kind were per-
mitted to pass out by the breakwater, and later
navigation in the river itself was prohibited. Still
everything was calm and quiet, tmt the haze thick-
ened and low scud-clouds began to sail in from the
China Sea. Shortly after tiffin at our residence by
the seaside, our gaze was attracted by a native com-
ing down the street, dressed in a black coat with
shirt-tails hanging out beneath, and wearing white
trousers and a tall hat. He carried a decorated cane,
wore no shoes, and marched down the centre of the
street, giving utterance to solemn sentences in a
deep musical voice. In short, he was the official
crier to herald the coming of the typhoon, and as he
marched along the bells up in the old church beyond
our house rang out what poets would call " a wild,
warning plea."

130 YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

The natives opposite began hastily to sling ropes
over the thatch of their light shanties, and one of the
Englishmen who lived not far back of us had already
stretched good solid cables over the steep-sloping
roof of his domicile. A sort of hush prevailed, and
then sudden gusts began to blow in off the bay.
The scud-clouds increased and appeared to be in a
fearful hurry. The roar of the surf loudened, and
one after the other of our sliding sea-shell windows
had to be shut and bolstered up for precaution.
The typhoon seemed to be advancing slowly, as they
often do, but its course was sure. Our eight o'clock
dinner-hour passed and the wind began to howl.
Before turning in for the night, we moved out of our
little parlor such valuable articles as might be most
missed if they decided to journey off through the air
in company with the roof, and later tried to sleep
amidst a terrific din of rattlings. But slumber was
impossible. Our house trembled like a blushing
bride before the altar, and for the triumphal music of
the " Wedding March '' the tin was suddenly stripped
off our rain-shed roof like so much paper. And then
the racket ! Great pieces of tin were slapping around
against the house like all possessed ; the trees in the
front garden were sawing against the cornices, as if
they wanted to get in, and the rush of air outside
seemed to generate a vacuum within.

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 131

At 3 A.M. things got so bad that it seemed as if
something were going to burst, and my chum and I
decided to take a last look into the parlor before seek-
ing the safety of the cellar. No glass would have with-
stood the gusts that came pouncing in from the Bay,
but our sea- shell windows did not seem to yield. The
rain was sizzling in through the cracks like hot grease
when a fresh doughnut is dropped into the spider,
and the noise outside was deafening. As our house
seemed to be holding together, however, we gave up
going to the regions below, and turned in again,
thankful that we were not off on the ships in the Bay.
Now and then the wind lulled somewhat, and blew
from another quarter, but by early morning came
some of the most terrific blowings I have ever felt,
resulting from the change of direction. Down came
all the wires in the main street; over went half a
dozen nipa houses to one side of us, and " kerplunk "
broke off some venerable trees that for many years
had withstood the blast. The street was a mass of
wreckage, as far down as the eye could see, and few
signs of life were visible. During the rest of the day
the wind blew most fiercely, but from the change of
direction it was easy to see that the centre of the
typhoon was passing off to the northwest.

I sallied out later in the afternoon, dressed in not
much more than a squash-hat, a rubber coat, and a pair

132 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

of boots, whose soles were holy enough to let the water
out as fast as it came in. It was as much as one
could do to stand against the blast, but I managed
to keep along behind the houses, cross the streets,
and reach the Luneta, where all the lamps bent their
heads with broken glass, and where the huge waves
were flying far up into the air in their efforts to dis-
pose of the stone sea-wall. The clumps of fishing
and bath houses which stood perched on posts
out in the surf were being fast battered to pieces,
and those which were not minus roof and sides were
washed up into the road as driftwood. The natives
were rushing gingerly hither and thither, grabbing
such logs as they could find, while some of the fisher-
men's families were crouching behind a stone wall
watching their wrecked barns, and sitting on their
saucepans, furniture, and babies, to keep them from
sailing skyward. The surf was tremendous, the
vessels in the bay were shrouded in spray, and several
of them seemed almost to be ashore in the breakers,
A steamer appeared to have broken adrift and was
locked in the embrace of a Nova Scotia bark. But
everything comes to an end and as night drew on
the winds and rain subsided and comparative quiet
succeeded a season of exaggerated movement and
din.
The typhoon was wide in diameter, perhaps two

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 133

hundred miles, and so was not destructive, like the
one that laid Manila low way back in the '80's. It
seems that the larger the diameter of one of these
circular storms, the less its intensity, and although
the wind at any given time is moving with tremen-
dous velocity within the circle, the whole disturbance
is not advancing at a pace much over a dozen miles
an hour.

After the typhoon came the floods, and the old
Pasig covered the adjacent country. The water con-
cealed the road to the up-town club at Nagtajan
under a depth of several feet, and one could without
difficulty row into the billiard-room or play water-
polo in the bowling-alley. Two of my friends were
nearly drowned by trying to drive when they should
have swum or gone by boat. The pony walked off
with their carriage into a rice-field, in the darkness,
and was drowned in more than eight feet of water.
The boys only crawled out with difficulty, and just
managed to reach " dry land " (that with three feet of
water over it) in the nick of time. As it was, one of
them practically saved the other's life, and has since
been presented with a gold watch, which does not run.

One of the bank-managers was to give a dinner-
dance at his house next evening, to which everyone
was invited, when word came that his bungalow could
only be reached by boats, and that the festivities

134 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

would have to be put off until the parlor floor ap-
peared. To the north, where the actual centre of the
typhoon passed, the railway was swept away, the
telegraph line that connects with the cable to Hong
Kong torn down, and the country in general laid
under water. But the show is now concluded, and
business, which had been paralyzed for a week, once
more starts up with the coming of the cablegrams.

Manila life goes on as ever, and it is curious to
note how fast the days and weeks slip backward.
Everyone agrees that the most rapid thing in town,
except the winds of the typhoons, is the speed with
which the Philippine to-day becomes yesterday. The
secret seems to lie in the fact that there are no land-
marks by which to remember the weeks that are
gone. The trees are green all the year round, and
there are no snow-storms to mark the contrast be-
tween winter and summer. There are no class-days,
no ball-games, and no coming out in spring fashions
to break the orderly procession of the sun, moon, and
stars. We wear our white starched suits every day
in the year, and one's wardrobe is not replete with
various checks, plaids, and stripes that mark an epoch
in one's appearance. We cannot, like Teufelsdroch,
in " Sartor Besartus," speculate much on the "clothes
philosophy," though we may do so on the centres of
indifference; for our garments are not complex

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 135

enough to invite transcendental theorizing. Manila
food is alike from Christmas morn to the following
Christmas eve, and so, take it all in all, the past is
practically without milestones, and seems far shorter
than one in which many events make the measured
steps more clearly differentiated.

At present everybody dates his ideas from the
typhoon, and that will remain a landmark for some
time, if the fire which took place the other evening
on the banks of the river does not usurp its po-
sition. Ten thousand bales of hemp, and a lot of
copra, sugar, and cocoanut-oil were sent aloft in less
earthly form. JEsthetically the sight was beautiful,
and the eye was charmed by the mingling of vast
tongues of blue, green, red, and yellow flames, some
of which burst forth from the very waters of the river
itself on which the inflammable materials had excur-
sioned. Our new fire-engine was on hand for the
first time, in actual service, and, together with the
small English engine brought out from London, did
its duty. America, as usual, was in the lead, and
everybody stood aghast to see the big five -inch stream
mow down the brick walls of the burning houses like
grain before the reaper. One native in particular,
whose frail hut was washed to splinters by that big
cataract played upon it to save it from the flames, said
he'd rather lose his property by fire than to stand by

136 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

and see the blooming bomba (fire-engine) blow it
all to bits. The local department, as usual, lost their
heads, and while some began to chop the tiles off
the roofs of neighboring houses, others directed the
streams from the hand-pumps onto the choppers.
Even our gallant friend the American broker, who
helps swell the number of Yankee business men in
Manila to four, almost got roasted alive by being shut
into an iron vault as he tried to rescue some valuable
papers belonging to a customer and had to be soused
with water, after his miraculous escape, to lower his
temperature. But at length Providence and water
prevailed, and the damage did not come to more
than half a million dollars.

VII

A Series of Typhoons— A Chinese Feast-day— A Bank-holiday Excur-
sion— Lost in the Mist — Los Banos — The " Enchanted Lake " —
Six Dollars for a Human Life — A Religious Procession— Celebra-
tion of the Expulsion of the Chinese — Bicycle Races and Fire-
works.

October 5th.

PHEW ! We have hardly had time to breathe since
the last mail, for we have been in the midst of ty-
phoon after typhoon, shipwrecks, house-wrecks, and
telegraph-wrecks, both simplex and duplex. Manila
had scarcely gotten over talking of the war of the
elements, above spoken of, before another cyclone
was announced to the south, and soon we were
going through an experience similar to that re-
lated the other day. When that was over, every-
body began to draw breath again, but before the
lungs of the populace were fully expanded, the wind
suddenly went into that dangerous quarter, the north-
west, and up went signal No. 5 again. The blow came
on more suddenly than the former one, and all hands
left the business offices to go home and sit on their
roofs. The tin was again stripped like paper from

our portico, and great masses of metal banged

137

138 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

around outside with the clash of cymbals. It was a
terrific night. The ships in the Bay dragged their
anchors nearly to the breakwater, and in the morning
four Spanish brigs were a total wreck. One in partic-
ular went ashore on the bar at the river's mouth, and
at daylight was being swept fore and aft by the great
seas. Eight men were hanging on for dear life, and
it looked as if they would be swallowed up in the
great drink ; but two big lifeboats were got out, and
as the sea moderated somewhat, the sailors were at
length rescued, just as their ship went all to smash.
A thousand houses were blown down, many of the
streets in Manila were flooded, telegraph lines pros-
trated, and tram-car service interrupted.

But things have now quieted down, and Sunday
was a big feast-day in the Chinese quarter. All the
wealthy Chinamen were celebrating something or
other, and they invited all the foreign merchants,
as well as their local friends, to the celebration.
They served tea and refreshments in their various
little junk shops, and some of the more influen-
tial members of the colony of fifty thousand gave
elaborate spreads, followed by dances and concerts.
The streets were filled with peculiar processions of
men carrying banners and graven images, and the
sidewalks were lined with spectators.

I went to one of the most pretentious of the indoor

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 139

functions, found myself in a gorgeously furnished
suite of apartments, decorated in true Chinese fashion,
and was royally entertained by a shrewd Celestial
who was supposed to be worth several million dollars.
He began conversation with me by saying that, in his
belief, bathing was injurious, and that he had not
taken a bath in thirty years. From all I could judge,
others of his brethren seemed to hold the same views
as he, and the long rooms, halls, and corridors in due
season got to be so warm and fragrant that it was a
relief to escape.

Now and then the bells in the big church rang
lustily, and many lanterns lighted it up from cornice
to keystone. Hundreds of carriages drove through
the streets, apparently bound nowhere in particular,
and the bands played in all quarters.

It almost seems as if each week in the calendar
brought in a religious display of some sort in some
one part of the town, and every Sunday evening finds
a big church somewhere blazing with light or a street
blinking with candles.

November 13th.

The Monday after the departure of the monthly
direct mail from Manila to the Peninsula is always
devoted to our old friend " bank-holiday," and all the
foreign merchants close their doors. This event
occurred the first of this week, and on Saturday after-

140 YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

noon last some of the more energetic of us, deciding
to take another little outing into the hills, started up
the river on a small launch, bound for the big lake at
the foot of the mountains. A drizzling rain was fall-
ing and the weather did not look propitious, but we
pushed on, left the mouth of the river where the lake
empties into it, and sallied out on the broad waters
of the Laguna de Bay. Numerous serving-boys,
boxes of china, food, ice, and bedding ballasted the
stern of our little steamer, and as it grew dark a feast
was prepared for us on deck. In going up the lake,
the pilot, who was accustomed only to navigating the
launch along the quays of Manila itself, got quite at
sea and lost his way in the evening mist. Some of
us, however, more nautical than the rest, procured a
chart, consulted a compass which the native mariner
in his stupidity chose utterly to disregard, and by
dint of perseverance brought the frail bark back into
her proper course, without further mishap than run-
ning through a series of fish-weirs.

We anchored near a little settlement, Los Bafios,
shortly before midnight. The deck planking did not
make a soft bed, but nevertheless the snoring soon
became hard likewise, and Sunday morning found us
refreshed by the bracing air of the provinces. The
rain had cleared away, and after an early breakfast
the pilot ran the launch slowly ashore on a smooth

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 141

beach, beneath a high bank fringed with bamboo.
The gang-plank was run out, and several of our little
party started off with guns to get some duck, snipe,
and pigeons, which were plentiful in the jungle be-
yond.

Those of us who were left, with a couple of native
guides, climbed up the steep slopes of an extinct vol-
cano to explore a so-called " Enchanted Lake " that
occupied the low crater. The way led past several
ponds filled to overflowing with pink pond-lilies,
and, as we wound up along the rising knolls, the air
was as fragrant as that of a greenhouse. Then came
a short climb which brought us to the crater's edge.
The Enchanted Lake lay like a mirror below, and
the rich foliage all about was almost perfectly re-
flected in the still, green water.

The locality being romantic, it is quite regular that
there should be connected with it an interesting story
which seems to bear on its face the evidences of truth.
It seems there used to live a fisherman and his wife
hard by the sloping banks that surround the En-
chanted Lake. One day, so the story goes, the
fisherman's spouse had reason to suspect the fidelity
of her husband, and aflame with pious rage, she con-
cocted a scheme to rid herself of her worser half.
Calling upon two rival fishermen whose hut was not
far distant, she promised them the large amount of

142 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

twelve dollars if they would put her husband out of
the way. This being a pot of money to them, they
agreed to her proposition, and during one of the
next excursions out to the distant fish-weirs in the
parent lake below, contrived to tip him overboard
and hold him under. Coming back in the afternoon,
they went to the hut of the freshly made widow and
demanded the twelve dollars.

" I can give you but six," said she, " for I'm hard
up."

"But you promised us twelve if we would do the
business," said they.

" But I tell you I can give you but six," responded
the widow. " Take that or nothing."

Angry at having been thus deceived, the two murder-
ers excitedly paddled over to the neighboring village
of Los Banos, went to the cuartel, presided over by a
Spanish official, and addressed him with these words :

"A lady over there by the Enchanted Lake prom-
ised us twelve dollars if we would kill her husband.
We have done the job and asked her for our money,
but she will only give us six. We want you to arrest
her."

The official, thinking the whole thing a joke, laugh-
ingly said he would attend to the matter. The two
simple-minded criminals went off, apparently satis-
fied, and disappeared.

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 143

Later, our friend the official thought there might
be some truth behind the apparent absurdity of the
yarn, and on investigation found that a murder had
actually been committed. But someone more cred-
ulous than the Spaniard gave a friendly warning to
the committers of the deed, and they were not brought
to justice until some months afterward. Such is the
comparative esteem in which the native holds human
life and Mexican dollars.

Later we descended again to the bold coast-line of
the Laguna de Bay and, to the accompaniment of
banging guns, which showed that some of the rest of
our party were really on the war-path, returned launch-
ward. The hunting-expedition came in soon after
with large bags of snipe and pigeon, and all hands
then joined in a series of dives off the stern of our
boat, or soused around in the tepid water. The group
of savages living in the huts near by were much
startled at our taking plunges headlong. They them-
selves never dive otherwise than feet first, for it
is a common superstition among the Filipinos that
the evil water-spirits would catch them by the head
and hold them under if this article came along before
the feet put in an appearance.

At noontime our native cooks did themselves proud
in getting up a game breakfast, and in the afternoon
the launch backed off and steamed across the narrow

144 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

bay to Los Banos itself, a little town clustering
around some boiling springs whose vapor floats over
a good hotel and some elaborate bathing-establish-
ments. This seems to be a rather favorite resort for
the Spanish population of Manila at certain times of
the year, and once or twice a week the old side-
wheeler Laguna de Bay stops here on her way up
from the capital to Santa Cruz.

Behind the town the land slopes steeply up to the
mountain heights of still another extinct volcano,
whose ghost exists merely to give life to the hot waters
of the springs below. In front it runs off to the lake
shore, and, all in all, the scenery is as picturesque as
the air is healthy. From Los Banos we crossed the
lake, cruised down along the abrupt mountainous
shores between the two fine old promontories of
Halla Halla, that jut out like the prongs to a W,
and stopped every now and then at some particu-
larly attractive little native village coming down to
the water's edge. At about sundown on Monday
afternoon, the prow was turned Manilaward, and
after a cool sunset sail of twenty miles we drew in
at the portico of the uptown club, all the better for
our two day's trip, which cost us each but a little
over five gold dollars.

Last night there occurred another one of those re-
ligious torchlight processions which are so common

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 145

in the streets of Old Manila. It started after sunset,
inside the city walls, from a big church brightly illu-
minated from top to bottom with small candle-cups
that gave it the appearance of a great sugar pal-
ace. The procession consisted of many richly deco-
rated floats, containing life-size figures of saints and
apostles dressed in garments of gold and purple
and borne along by sweating coolies, who staggered
underneath a draping that shielded from view all save
their lower limbs and naked feet. The larger floats
were covered with dozens of candelabra and guarded
by soldiers with fixed bayonets. Other rolling floats
of smaller magnitude were pulled along by little
children in white gowns, while troops of old maids,
young maids, and Spanish women marched be-
fore and behind, dressed in black and carrying
candles. The black mantillas which fell gracefully
from the heads of many of the torch-bearers gave
their faces a look of saint-like grace, except at such
times as the evening breeze made the candle-grease
refractory, and one might easily have imagined him-
self a spectator at a celebration in Seville.

Many bands all playing different tunes in differ-
ent times and keys, rows of hard-faced, fat-stom-
ached priests trying to look religious but failing
completely to do so, and five hundred small boys,
who, like ours at home, formed a sort of rear guard

146 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

to the solemnities, all went to make up the peculiar
performance. The whole long affair started from the
church, wound through the narrow streets, and finally
brought up at the church again, where it was saluted
by fireworks and ringing of bells.

In the balconies of the houses that almost overhung
the route were smiling crowds of lookers-on, and Ko-
man candles and Bengola lights added impressiveness
to the scene, or dropped their sparks on the garments
of those promenading below. As the various images
of the Virgin Mary and the Descent from the Cross
passed by, everyone took off his hat and appeared
deeply impressed with religious feeling. After the
carriers of the floats had put down for good their
expensive burdens in the vestry of the church, a few
liquid refreshments easily started them quarrelling as
to the merits of their respective displays. One set
claimed that their Descent from the Cross was more
life-like than that carried by their rivals, and they
almost came to blows over which of the Virgin Marys
wore the finest clothes.

Yesterday was the celebration of the expulsion of
the Chinese invaders from the Philippines, about a
hundred years ago, and the whole city was aglow
with flags and decorations. In the afternoon every-
body went to the Luneta to see the bicycle races and
to hear the music. A huge crowd surged around the

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 147

central plaza, and the best places in the band-stand
were reserved for the Spanish ladies and Government
dignitaries. The races were slow, but the crowd
cheered and seemed perfectly satisfied as one after
another of the contestants tipped over going around
the sharp corners. After the races a beautiful Span-
ish maiden, whose eyes were so crossed that she
must have easily mixed up the winning bicycle with
the tail-ender, distributed the prizes, and the police
had hard work to keep the crowd from overwhelming
the centre of attraction. Then everybody listened to
the music, walked or drove around in carriages, and
waited for the fireworks, which were set off not long
after sunset. The costly display was accompanied
by murmurings of " Oh ! " from hundreds of throats.
There was an Eiffel Tower of flame, several mixed-
up crosses that twisted in and out of each other, nu-
merous scroll-wheels, fountains, and a burst of
bombs and rockets. Some of the parachute stars
gracefully floated out over the Bay and descended
into the water, causing startled exclamations from
the natives, who are not accustomed to look on fire-
works with equanimity. But as of old, everything
finally ended in smoke, and the multitude melted
away, thoroughly satisfied with the celebration of the
anniversary of the victory over the Chinese.

As it seems about time to take a longer rest than

148 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

usual from the labor attendant on waiting for a boom
in the hemp market, I hope next week to start off on
one of the well-equipped provincial steamers, that
makes a run of two thousand miles south, among
the sugar-islands and the hemp-ports, and in the
next chapter there ought to be a rather long account
of what is said to be a very interesting voyage.

VIII

A Trip to the South — Contents of the " Puchero "— Romblon— Cebu,
the Southern Hemp-Centre—Places Touched At— A Rich Indian
at Camiguin— Tall Trees — Primitive Hemp-Cleaners — A New
Volcano — Mindanao Island — Moro Trophies — Iligan — Iloilo —
Back Again at Manila.

December 23, 1894.

I HAVE just returned from the south, and feel able
enough to begin the narrative. On Saturday, De-
cember 1, thick clouds obscured the sky, and gusty
showers of rain continued to fall until evening,
when they formed themselves into a respectable
downpour. It was objectionable weather for the
dry season just commencing, but the northwest
monsoon was said to be heavy outside, and the rain
on our east coast evidently slid over the mountains
back of Manila, instead of staying where it belonged.
Such was the day of starting, while, to cap the climax,
just before the advertised leaving-time of the Uranus,
word came from the Jesuit observatory that a typhoon
was apparently getting ready to sail directly across
the course we were to take, and up went signal
No. 3 on the flag-staff at the mouth of the river.

Philosophers, however, must not be bothered by

149

150 YESTEKDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

trifles, and although my friends predicted a miserable
voyage, and told me to take all my water-proofs
and sou'westers, I went aboard the steamer with a
smiling countenance only, followed by three " boys "
who deposited my traps in a state-room of lean pro-
portions.

At half after seven in the evening the whistle blew,
the visitors departed, and the Uranus slowly began
to back down the narrow river into the black night.
She is one of the largest and newest "province
steamers" in the Philippines, and it took a great
deal of manipulation to turn her around and get her
headed toward the Bay. As large, perhaps, as one of
our coasting boats that runs to the West Indies, she
has a flush deck from stem to stern, and is ruled over
by a very jolly, stubby, little Spanish captain who
looks eminently well fed if not so well groomed.

We got out of the river at eight o'clock, saw the
three warning, red, typhoon lanterns glaring at us, and
started full speed ahead for Romblon, our first calling-
port, eighteen hours away. Dinner was served on
deck from a large table formed by closing down the
huge skylights to the regular dining-saloon below,
and the eaters took far more enjoyment in their
Spanish bill of fare under the awnings than they
would have done had the same victuals been dished
up downstairs. I say " victuals," for the word seems

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 151

to be the only invention for just such combinations
as were set before us, and " dished up " suggests
the scooped-out-of-a-kettle process far better than
" served." Spanish food is rather too mixy, too gar-
licky, too unfathomable for me, but as one can get
used to anything I accommodated myself to the pu-
chero (a mixture of meat, beans, sausages, cabbage,
and pork), and was soon eating fish as a fifth course
instead of a second. The feast began with soup
and sundries, and was continued by the puchero
which was merely an introduction to the fish course,
the roast, and all the cheese and things that fol-
lowed. Every dinner was practically the same, dif-
fering slightly in details, and the deck each time played
its part as dining-room. Early breakfast came at six,
late breakfast came at ten, and dinner poked along at
five — a combination of meal hours which was enough
to give one indigestion before touching a mouthful.

During the night we all waited in vain to hear the
sizzling of the typhoon that came not, and got up
next morning to find the scare had been for
nothing. The clouds and rain were clearing away,
and the prow of the Uranus was headed directly
for a region of blue sky. By breakfast-time there
was hardly a cloud in the heavens, the rooster
up for'ard began to crow, the mooly-cow which we
were soon to eat began to moo, the islands in front

152 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

drew nearer, and the scene became fairer each moment.
At noon we steamed below a great mountainous island,
crossed a sound between it and another group, entered
a narrow channel, and at one o'clock dropped anchor
in the small land-locked harbor of Romblon. Every-
where the hills fell abruptly into the water, and houses
looked as if they had slid down off the steep slopes to
hobnob with each other in a mass below. There was
a public bath down beside a brook, where everybody
came to wash, an old church, the market-place, and a
prodigious long flight of steps leading up to the upper
districts, where the view down back over the low
nipa houses toward the bay was most extensive.

We stayed in this little Garden of Eden until after
three o'clock, then pulled out to the steamer, and left
again for the south, over a calm sea and beneath
a glorious sky. Some of us slept on deck in the
moonlight, but, finding it if anything too cool and
breezy, were up betimes to see the island of Cebu
looming on our right hand. Our early six-o'clock
breakfast finished, we sat up on the bridge in easy-
chairs, beneath the double awning, as the Uranus
poked down along the mountainous coast toward the
city of Cebu. At ten o'clock we passed through the
narrow channel that leads between a small island and
its big brother Cebu, and soon saw the white houses
of the town lapping the harbor's edge. Two Ameri-

A Citizen from the Interior.

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 153

can ships were apparently taking in their cargoes of
hemp, and beside them a small fleet of native craft
and steamers smudged the little bay. Anchor was
dropped again and those of us who cared to go ashore
met some of our former friends from Manila on 'change
and took a look over this great hemp-centre of the
South.

The local excitement was limited, and, except that
a Chinaman had been beheaded by some enemy the
night before as he was walking home through the
street, news was scarce. Numerous people, however,
were gathered together outside the police-station,
looking at the remains, and several sailors from the
American ships, who had swum ashore during the
night to get drunk, were being returned to their vessels
in charge of the civil guard.

The Uranus was not to stop long, and most of the
through passengers returned early to the steamer to
enjoy a view tempered by rather more breeze and less
smell than that which the narrow streets afforded.
Cebu, from the deck, was worthy of a sonnet; the
white houses and church spires were set off against
the dark-green background of mountains, and as the
sun got lower the place did not have the broiled-
alive aspect that it bore during the middle of the
day. At four the stubby little Captain came aboard,
and soon we turned northeast for our next stopping-

154 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

place, Ormoc. Another colored sunset, another din-
ner in the golden light, another moonrise, another
sail up among the islands, and at eleven on the
evening of Monday we entered the harbor of Or-
moc. Here two or three ponies were hoistod over-
j board to be taken landward, a can of kerosene was
loaded into the purser's boat as he went ashore with
the papers, and a little chorus of shoutings concluded
our midnight visit to the second stop of the day.

Tuesday morning the sun rose over the lofty moun-
tains on the island of Leyte, and the Uranus shaped
her course for Catbalogan, another of the larger
hemp-ports. The steam up the bay blotched with
islands was perfection, and by ten o'clock the anchor
hunted round for a soft bed in the ooze, some eight
hundred yards off a sandy beach, above which lay the
town. Those of us who had energy enough to bolt
our hearty breakfast were taken by the jolly-boat onto
the mud flats, and were carried through the shal-
low water on oars to dry land. On the slopes of the
higher mountains, behind the town, the hemp-plants
(looking exactly like banana-trees), grew luxuriously,
and in front of many of the houses in "Catbalogan
the white fibre was out drying on clothes-lines.
A short taste of the hot sun easily satisfied our
curiosity as to Catbalogan, and we were off to the
ship again for more breakfast, just as several hungry-

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 155

looking Spanish guests, including the Governor's
family, came aboard from the town to partake of a
meal hearty enough to last them till the arrival of
the next steamer.

From Catbalogan to its sister town, Tacloban, four
hours to the south, the course leads among the nar-
row straits between high, richly wooded islands,
and the scenery was most picturesque. Here and
there little white beaches gleamed along the shore,
and in front of the nipa shanties that now and then
looked out from among the trees hung rows of hemp
drying in the sun. Off and on the big waves, kicked
up by the forward movement of the Uranus in the
land-locked waters, woke up the stillness resting on
the banks, and nearly upset small banco, loads of the
white fibre which was perhaps being paddled down
to some larger centre from more remote stamping-
grounds. From the bridge our view was most com-
prehensive, and it wasn't long before the steamer
actually entered the river like strait that separates
the islands of Samar and Leyte. We twisted around
like a snake through the narrow channel, on each side
of which were high hills and mountains, richly treed
with cocoanuts and hemp-plants, and, just as the sun
was getting low, hauled into Tacloban, situated in-
side an arm of land that protects it from the dashing
surges of the Apostles' Bay beyond.

156 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

At Tacloban there was little to see. A high range
of hills rose behind the town, and in the evening
half-light everything looked more or less attractive.
We climbed a small knoll that looked off over the Bay
of St. Peter and St. Paul to the south and down over
the village. The strait through which we came
stretched up back among the hills like a river, and
in the foreground lay the Uranus. A number of
hemp store-houses lined the water-front, and as usual
the ever-present Chinese were the central figures of
the commercial part of the community. At eight
the anchor came up once more, and we left Tacloban
to steam religiously down the bay of St. Peter and
St. Paul for Cabalian, eight hours to the south.

Cabalian is another little hemp-town, at the foot of
a huge mountain ; but in the starlight of the very
early morning we stopped there only long enough to
leave the mail and drop a pony overboard. Sunrise
caught us still steering to the south, but nine o'clock
tied our steamer to a little wharf in Surigao, directly
in front of a large hemp-press and store-house belong-
ing to the owners of the ship on which we were jour-
neying. Some of the best hemp that comes to the
Manila market is pressed at Surigao, and all around
were stacks of loose fibre drying in the sun or being
separated into different grades by native coolies.
Several of us left the ship and walked to the main

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 157

village, but, as before, found little to note except the
intense heat of a boiling sun.

There was the customary hill behind the town, and
at the risk of going entirely into solution during the
effort, two of us climbed to the top for a breath of air
and a panoramic view.

Dinner came along as usual at five ; but I must say
that the more I ate of those curiously timed meals the
less I could accommodate my mental powers to the
comprehension of what I was doing. Everybody
knows what a difficult psychological problem it is to
determine the exact numerical nature of the feeling in
the second and third toes of his feet, as compared
with that in the fingers of his hands. On your hands
you can distinctly feel the first finger, the middle
finger, and the fourth finger ; but on your feet your
second toe doesn't feel like your first finger nor as a
second toe should naturally feel. The great toe cor-
responds in sensation to one's first finger, and all the
other toes save the last seem to be muddled up without
that differentiated sensation which the fingers have.
And so with these meals aboard ship. A ten o'clock
breakfast was neither breakfast nor luncheon, and it
bothered me considerably to know what in the dickens
I was really eating. In fact, it affected my mind to
such a degree that somehow the food tasted as if it
did not belong to any particular meal, but came from

158 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

another order of things ; and I spent long, serious
moments between the courses in trying to locate the
repast in my library of prehistoric sensations, just as
I have often tried to locate the digit which my second
toe corresponds to in feeling.

"We left Surigao an hour before midnight, sailed
away over moonlit seas toward the island of Cami-
guin, and when I stuck my head out of the port-hole
at half after five next morning, the two very lofty
mountain-peaks which formed this sky-scraper of the
Philippines were just ridding themselves of the garb
of darkness. Three of us went ashore at seven, and
were introduced to a rich Indian, who, although the
possessor of four hundred thousand dollars, lived in a
common little nipa house. He invited us to see the
country, fitted us out with three horses and a mounted
servant, and sent us up into the mountains, where his
men were working on the hemp-plantations.

We started up the sharp slopes, and were soon get-
ting a wider and wider view back over the town and
blue bay below. First the path was bounded with
rice-fields, but, as we rose, the hemp plants which, as
before said, look just like their relatives, the banana-
trees, began to hem us in. Now and again we came
to a little hut where long strings of fibre were out
drying in the sun, but our boy kept going upward
until we were rising at an angle of almost forty-five

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 159

degrees. Everywhere the tall twenty-five-foot hemp-
trees extended toward the mountain summit as far
as the eye could carry, and we were much interested
in seeing so much future rope in its primogenital
state. Up we went across brooks, over rocks, beneath
tall, tropical hardwood trees, nearly two hundred feet
high, that here and there lifted themselves up toward
heaven and at last came to the place where the natives
were actually separating the hemp from strippings by
pulling them under a knife pressed down on a block
of wood. The whole little machine was so absurdly
simple, with its rough carving-knife and rude levers,
that it hardly seemed to correspond with the elaborate
transformation that took place from the tall trees to
the slender white fibre separated by the rusty blade.
One man could clean only twenty-five pounds of hemp
a day, and when it is remembered the whole harvest
consists of about 800,000 bales, or 200,000,000 pounds
per year, it seems the more remarkable that so rude an
instrument should have so star a part to play. We
each tried pulling the long, tough strippings under the
knife that seemed glued to the block, but there was a
certain knack which we did not seem to possess, and
the thing stuck fast. All in all this visit to the hemp-
cleaners will supply us with strong answers to letters
from manufacturers who have written us to make
efforts in introducing heavy machines for separating

160 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

hemp from the parent tree, but who have failed to
understand that a couple of levers and a carving knife
are far easier to carry up a steep mountain-slope than
a steam engine, and an arrangement as big as a mod-
ern reaper. We lingered about all the morning on
these up-in-the-air plantations, and at noon picked
our way slowly back again over the stony path to the
village, glad that we didn't have to earn fifty cents a
day by so laborious a method.

Leaving our host with a promise to come ashore
again and use his horses in the afternoon, we went
down to the long pier and rowed off to the Uranus in
one of the big ship's boats that was feeding her emp-
ty forehold with instalments of hemp. In the early
afternoon we again went ashore, took other ponies
and started off up the coast toward a remarkable vol-
cano, which, though not existing in 1871, has since
been business-like enough to grow up out of the sandy
beach, until it is now a thousand feet high. A whole
town was destroyed during the growing process, but
to-day the signs of activity are not so evident. The
path up the mountain-side was terrifically stony and
somewhat obscure. Long creepers frequently caught
us by the neck, or wound themselves about our feet,
in attempts to rid the ponies of their burden. It was
a laborious undertaking, and it didn't look as if we
should reach the crater before dark, but we kept on

u

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 161

ascending, thinking each knoll would give us that
longed-for look into the business office of the volcano.
But in vain. It was now getting so near sunset that we
feared to lose the way, and, instead of pushing on
farther, we reluctantly turned about and went full
speed astern. The descent was unspeakable ; the
horses' knees were tired ; they stumbled badly ; the
vines and creepers snarled us up, and everyone mut-
tered yards of cuss- words. On the way down we saw
several wonderful views over the hemp-trees to the
coast below, met numerous natives cleaning up their
last few stalks of fibre for the day, and at last came
out once more on the rough pasture-road leading to
Mambajao, off which the Uranus was anchored. It
was now moonlight, we all broke into a gallop for the
Liree-quarter-hour ride to the village, and everybody,
including the jaded ponies, thanked Heaven when we
Cached the first lights of the town.
Late the same evening the Uranus left, sailed
around the island's western edge in the moonlight,
and turned southward for Cagayan, on Mindanao
Island, the last of the Philippines to resist subjection
by the Spanish and now the scene of wars and con-
flicts with the bloodthirsty savages who are indige-
nous to the soil.

Morning introduced us to a shaky wharf and to a
group of gig-drivers, who said the town was fully

162 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

three miles away. "We were in the enemy's country,
but nevertheless two of us started off to walk to the
village, following quite a party who had already
taken the road. It was an hour's plod along beneath
tall cocoanut-palms before we came to the main part
of the settlement, surrounding the jail, court-house,
and residence of the Spanish Governor. Hard by ran
a river spanned by a curious suspension-bridge. It
carried the high road to the village and country on
the other bank, and in our party from the steamer
was an engineer who had come down to inspect this
structure, which but a short time ago had utterly
collapsed under the strain of its own opening exercises,
killing a Spaniard, and cutting open the head of the
Governor's wife. Of late, however, the bridge had
been repaired, and the question seemed to be, was it
safe ? For my benefit, as I walked over the long eight-
hundred-foot span, the old bridge wobbled around like
a bowl of jelly, and considering that there were alli-
gators in the reflective waters below, 1 did not feel
I was doing the right thing by my camera and friends
to stay longer where I was. Some of the secondary
cables were flimsy affairs, and inspection revealing the
fact that the structure was just one-twentieth as
strong as it ought to be, placards were put up to the
effect that the bridge was closed except for the passing
of one person at a time.

YESTEKDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 163

At the bridge we fell into talk with a pleasant
Spaniard, who was the interventor or official go-
between in affairs concerning Governor and natives.
We asked him as to the prospects of finding some
Moro arms, knives, and shields in the settlement
for being in a district upon which a recent descent
had been made it seemed as if the town should be
rich in bloody curios. He gave us some encourage-
ment, and off we trotted across the central plaza with
its old church, on an expedition of search. It seems
that all the houses around this plaza were armed to
the teeth, and in time of need the whole place
could be transformed into a fort. Every house in
the pueblo had one of the newest type of Mauser
rifles standing up in the corner, and in fifteen
minutes fifteen hundred men could be mustered
ready armed to fight the savage Moros. We really
felt as if we were in one of the Indian outposts of
early American days, and were quite interested in the
conversation of our guide, who seemed to take a great
liking to two foreigners. We went into several
little huts where knives and spears were hung upon
the doors, and succeeded in exchanging many of our
dollars for rude, weird weapons with waving edges
or poisoned points. We passed several "tamed"
Moros in the street and took off some bead neck-
laces, turbans, and bracelets which they had on.

164 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

Further search revealed shields and hats, and be-
fore the morning turned to afternoon we had visited
nearly half the houses in the village. Sometimes a
tune on the ever-present piano, coaxed out by yours
truly, would bring a shield from off the wall, and at
others the more telling music coming from the jing-
ling dollars was more effectual.

For dinner we went to the house of the interventor
to lunch on some grass mixed with macaroni, canned
fish, bread and water, and if I hadn't been so much oc-
pied with our Spanish conversation I might have felt
hungry. After the meal our host wanted me to take
a photograph of him and his wife dressed up in a
discarded theatrical costume, and it was quite as lu'
dicrous as anything on the trip. An upholstered
throne — part of the stage-setting in their play of the
week before — was rigged up in the back yard, and
the sefior and sefiora, robed as king and queen of
Aragon, put on all the airs of a royal family as they
stood before the camera. These good people pulled
the house to pieces to show us wigs, crowns, and
wooden swords, and it seemed as if we should never
get away. Later, however, our good friend borrowed
a horse in one place, a carriage in another, helped us
to go around and collect our various purchases, pre-
sented me with a shield which he took down off his
own wall, and drove us back to the steamer. Here

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 165

we unloaded all the stuff, and, surrounded by a curi-
ous throng of questioners, went aboard to stow our
possessions away. The day had been a prolific one,
and, although we had not expected to go into the
curio business on the excursion, our respective state-
rooms were now loaded up with gimcracks that would
interest the most rabid ethnographer.

Toward midnight the Uranus steamed out of the
Bay of Cagayan and headed for Misamis, still farther
south. Another calm night, and Saturday morning
saw us approaching a little collection of nipa huts
presided over by an old stone fort and backed up by
the usual high range of mountains. Two Spanish
gunboats, the Elcano and Ulloa, all flags flying, in
honor of Sunday or something were at anchor in the
Bay, and at eight o'clock we pulled ashore to frit-
ter away an hour or so in looking about an un-
interesting village. There was a saying here that no
photographer ever lived to get fairly into the town,
for the only two who had ever come before this way
were drowned in getting ashore from their vessels. As
I walked about the streets, several Indian women
stuck their heads out of the windows of their huts
seeming quite amazed to see a live picture-maker, and
asked in poor Spanish how much I would charge for
a dozen copies of their inimitable physiognomies.

Misamis business detained the Uranus but for a

166 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

short hour, and she then turned her head across the
Bay eastward for Iligan, the seat of all the war oper-
ations in Mindanao. During the two hours and a
half that our course led close along the hostile shore,
we had breakfast and arrived at Iligan, the most dis-
mal place in the world, about two o'clock in the
afternoon. Everything looked down-in-the-mouth
except the thermometer, and that was up in the roar-
ing hundreds. The town was like all other Philip-
pine villages, except that around the outskirts were
the ruins of an old stockade with observation-towers,
and in the streets soldiers, both native and Spanish,
held the corners at every turn.

While I paddled across a creek to get a photo-
graph of some friendly savages on the other bank, one
of my steamer friends went up to the Government
house to make a formal visit. It seems he found no
one at home except the wife of one of the high de-
partment officials, and she was reading the latest let-
ters just fresh from the mail-bag of the Uranus. As I
got back from across the river I heard a tremendous
pandemonium going on in the upper story of the
building in question, and soon my fellow-passenger
came bolting down the stairs and out into the street
below. The poor woman, on reading in her freshly
opened letter that her husband, who had but recently
gone up to Manila for a week's stay, was an abscond-

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 167

er to the extent of some three hundred thousand dol-
lars, suddenly lost her mind. He had tried to get
across to China, so it seemed, but was taken on the
sailing-day of the steamer, and the wife now first
heard the news. So, as chairs and flower-pots came
sailing out the windows or down the stairs, we wise-
ly decided to get out of harm's way, and together
walked back to the steamer-landing, musing on Span-
ish methods of pocket-lining.

The Moros themselves are sturdy beggars, though
most picturesque ones, and the tame specimens that
came into Iligan were curious in the extreme.
Dressed in native-made cloths of all colors, their
heads were ornamented with turbans of red and white
and blue, while gaudy sashes gave them an air of
aristocratic distinction which few of their northern
brothers possessed. Some of them black all their
teeth, others only put war-paint on their two front
pairs of ivories, and while some looked as if they had
no chewing machinery at all, others appeared as if
they might only have played centre rush on a modern
foot-ball team.

For years now Spain has sent men and gun-boats
down to Mindanao to wipe out the savages and
bring the island under complete subjection, but with-
out avail. Young boys from the north have been
drafted into native regiments to go south on this

168 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

fatal errand. The prisons of Manila have been
emptied and the convicts, armed with bolos or
meat-choppers, have followed their more righteous
brethren to the front. Well-trained native troops
have gone there ; Spanish troops have gone ; officers
have tried it, but to no end. If, in the storming of
some Moro stronghold, a dozen miles back inland
from the beach, the convicts in the front rank were
cut to pieces by the enemy, it was of no importance.
If the drafted youths were slaughtered, there were
more at home. If the native troops failed to carry
the charge, things began to look serious. But if the
Spanish companies were touched, it was time to flee.
Such have been the tactics in this great grave-yard,
and where the Moros lost the day, fever stepped in
and won. The towns along the coast are Spain's,
but the interior still swarms with savages, who are
there to dispute her advance and are daily tramping
over the graves of many of her soldiers.

We left Moro land at eight o'clock in the evening,
after dining various officials who came aboard to
see what they could get to eat, and by Sunday morn-
ing at sunrise had crossed northward to the island of
Bohol, dropping anchor in Maribojoc, a small unin-
teresting place with an old church, a Spanish padre
who had not been out of town in thirty years long
enough ever to see a railroad or a telephone, and the

Moro Chiefs from Mindanao. See page ,67.

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 169

usual collection of thick-lipped natives. We stayed
here to unload a lot of bulky school-desks and chairs
destined to be used by the semi-naked youth of the
vicinity, and a few of our company went ashore
merely to walk lazily about the village.

Next, a second stop at Cebu for the mails bound
Manilaward, a good-by for the second time to our
friends, and the Uranus now kept back down the
coast toward Dumaguete, a prosperous town on the
rich sugar-island of Negros. At ten o'clock that
night we were off again, and Tuesday noon ushered
us in to Iloilo, the second city of the Philippines. A
lot of " go-downs " (store-houses) and dwellings on the
swampy peninsula made a fearfully stupid-looking
place, and the glare off the sheet-iron roofs was blind-
ing. Scarcely a foot above tide-water, Iloilo was far
less prepossessing than Manila, but everyone seemed
cordial, and friends were so glad to see us that we
appeared to confer a favor in stopping off to see them.
The surroundings of Iloilo are far more picturesque
than those of Manila, and just across the bay a
wooded island, whose high altitude stands out in
bold contrast to the marshes over which the city
steeps, gave an outlook from the town that compensat-
ed for the inlook over dusty streets and dirty quays.
The English club occupied its usually central position
in the commercial section of the city, and formed an

170 YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

oasis of refreshment in the midst of the thirsty desert
of iron roofs surrounding it. And if any single stanza
of verse could have been quoted to describe the feel-
ings of a newly arrived guest, sitting in a long chair
on the club piazza and looking off at the bubbling
volumes of hot air rising from those roofs, it would
have been that in which the poet says :

" Where the latitude's mean and the longitude's low,
Where the hot winds of summer perennially blow,
Where the mercury chokes the thermometer's throat,
And the dust is as thick as the hair on a goat,
Where one's throat is as dry as a mummy accursed,
Here lieth the land of perpetual thirst."

The afternoon-tea hour is perhaps more carefully
observed among the English business houses here
than in the capital to the north, and we left the very
good little club, with its billiard-tables and stale
newspapers, to join one of the regular gatherings in
the large office of a friend. But tea, toast, jam, and
oranges had no sooner been set before us than the deep
whistle of the Uranus sounded, and those of us who
were going north had to make a hurried adjournment
to the neighboring wharf. Then, as everybody on
deck began to say " adios," and everybody on shore
" hasta la vista," the stubby little captain roared out
"avante'' and our steamer started for Manila, two
hundred and fifty miles away.

YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 171

Next morning we got our first taste of the monsoon,
and it came up pretty rough as we crossed some of
the broad, open spaces between the islands. There
were three dozen passengers aboard ship, and every-
body, including four dogs, was desperately sea-sick.
But sheltering islands soon brought relief to the pre-
vailing misery, the dogs recovered their equilibrium
enough to renew the curl in their tails, and the heav-
ing vessel grew quite still. We touched again at
Romblon, on our way up, long enough to get the
mail and bring off an unshaven padre or two, bound
up to the capital for spiritual refreshment, and for
the last time headed for Manila. The monsoon
apparently went down with the sun; we were not
troubled further with heaving waters, and early on
Thursday morning passed through the narrow mouth
of Manila Bay, just as the sun was rising in the
east, and the full moon setting over Mariveles in the
west. The Uranus made a short run across the
twenty-seven miles of water to the anchorage among
the shipping, and everybody bundled ashore in a noisy
launch, almost before the town had had its breakfast.

In the afternoon, when the steamer came into the
river, I brought all of my arms, armor, and shells
ashore to the office, and the American skippers who
were waiting for free breezes from the punkah
began outbidding each other with offers of baked

172 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

beans and doughnuts for the whole collection. At
home, the house had not been blown away, but was
firm as ever; the dogs rejoiced to see me back; the
cat, with a crook in her tail, purred extra loudly;
the ponies, that had grown fat on lazy living, pawed
the stone floor in the stable; the boy put flowers
on the table for dinner and peas in the soup, and the
moon looked in on us in full dress. Thus ended
a fortnight's trip of some two thousand miles down
through the arteries of the archipelago.

IX

Club-house Chaff— Christmas Customs and Ceremonies — New Year's
Calls— A Dance at the English Club— The Royal Exposition of
the Philippines — Fireworks on the King's Fete Day — Electric
Lights and the Natives — The Manila Observatory — A Hospitable
Governor — The Convent at Antipole.

December 26th.

"'A YOUNG Bostonian, in business in the Philip-
pines/ that is you, isn't it ? "

"'Trembling like a blushing bride before the
altar.' " " Well, blushing bride, how are you ? "

"'The bells in the old church rang out a wild,
warning plea.' They did, did they ? And did, 'The
lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea ? ' '

" 'The fishermen's wives were sitting on their sauce-
pans, furniture, and babies, to keep them from sailing
off skyward.' Poor things ! Quite witty, weren't they ? "

These were some of the expressions that greeted
me as I entered the Club the other evening, about
two hours after the last mail arrived.

My attention was called to the bulletin-board where
the official notices were posted, and there, tacked up

in all its glory was a printed copy of my letter on the

173

174 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

typhoon, while on all sides were various members of
the English colony, laughing boisterously, and poking
me in the ribs with canes and billiard-cues. Some
of the brokers had apparently learned the contents
of that fatal letter by heart, and stood on chairs recit-
ing those touching lines in dialogue with unharnessed
levity.

To say that I was mildly flummuxed at hearing my
familiar verbiage proceeding from the mouths of
others would be mild, but it was impossible not to
join in the general laugh, and digest, in an offhand
way, the jibes and jokes which were epidemic. It
seems my cautions have been of no avail, and the
letter which you so kindly gave the Boston editor to
read and print was sent out here to my facetious
friend the American broker, whose whole life seems to
be spent in trying to find the laugh on the other man.
Somebody else also sent him a spare copy to give to
his friends, and down town at the tiffin club next noon,
my late entrance to the breakfast-room was a signal
for the whole colony to suspend mastication and with
clattering knives and clapping hands to vent their
mirth in breezy epithets. But jokes are few and far
between in this far Eastern land, and somebody or
other might as well be the butt of them.

Just as surely as the 24th of December comes
around, all the office-boys of your friends, who have

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 175

perhaps brought letters from their counting-room to
yours, all the chief cooks and bottle-washers of
your establishment, all of the policemen on the va-
rious beats between your house and the club, and all
the bill-collectors who come in every month to wheedle
you out of sundry dollars, have the cheek to ask for
pourboires. Imagine a man coming around to collect
a bill, and asking you to fee him for being good
enough to bring that document to hand. But that is
just what the Manila bill-collector does at Christmas-
tide. Then all of the native fruit-girls, who each day
climb the stairs with baskets of oranges on their
heads, come in with little printed blessings and hold
out their hands for fifty cents.

Once out of the office, you go home to find the ice-
man, the ashman, the coachman, and the cook all
looking for tips, and you are compelled to feel most
religiously holy, as you remember that it is more
blessed to give than to receive.

Christmas-eve, somehow, did not seem natural,
though the town was very lively. Some of the shops
had brought over evergreen branches from Shanghai
to carry out the spirit of the occasion. The streets
were crowded with shoppers, everybody was carrying
parcels, and if it had been cold, we might have
looked for Santa Claus.

There are but half a dozen English ladies in our

176 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

little Anglo-Saxon colony, and each of them takes a
turn in giving dinners, asking as her guests, besides
a few outsiders, the other five. On Christmas-eve
took place one of these rather stereotyped feasts, and
afterward the guests went down in carriages to the
big cathedral, that cost a million dollars, inside the
old walled town, to hear the midnight mass. Ac-
companied by a large orchestra and a good organ,
the mass was more jolly than impressive. The
music consisted of polkas, jigs, and minuets, and
everybody walked around the great building, talk-
ing and smiling most gracefully. A few of the really
devout sat in a small enclosed space in the centre of
the church, but they found it hard to keep awake,
and their eyes were red with weeping, not for the
sins of an evil world, but from opening and shutting
their jaws in a series of yawns.

Just before the hour of midnight, comparative
quiet ensued with the reading of a solemn prayer or
two, but just as the most reverend father who was
conducting the ceremonies finished bowing behind
the high gold and velvet collar to his glittering gown,
thirteen bells wagged their tongues that broke up
the stillness of the midnight, and everybody wished
everybody else " Felices Pascuas ! " (Merry Christ-
mas !) The organ tuned up, the boy-choir sang itself
red, white, and blue, the priestly assistants swung

u

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 177

the censors until the church was heavy with fra-
grance, and all those who had nothing else to do
yawned and wished they were in bed.

After staying a little longer, our party left, and
went over to the Jesuit Church near by, where a very
good orchestra seemed to be playing a Virginia reel.
Here were similar ceremonies modified somewhat to
suit the rather different requirements of the Order,
and after staying long enough not to appear as in-
truding spectators, we made our exit.

And now that Christmas is all over, everybody
seems to be wearing a new hat, the most appropriate
present that can be given in this land of sun-strokes
and fevered brows.

January 5th.

The new year has come and gone, though out this
way no one believes in turning over a new leaf.

It seems to be a custom to start the year by calling
on all the married ladies of the colony, who make
their guests loquacious with sundry little cocktails
that stand ready prepared on the front verandas.
Everybody makes calls, till he forgets where anything
but his head is situated, and then brings up at the
club out by the river-bank more or less the worse for
wear. In honor of the day, the menu was most
attractive, but many of the party were in no condition
to partake, and spent the first day of the new calen-

178 YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

dar in suffering from the effects of their morning
visits.

With the new year came the dance, which we bach-
elor members of the club gave to the English ladies
in particular and to Manila society in general, as a
small return for hospitality received, and it was de-
clared a huge success. The club-house was decor-
ated from top to toe. Two or three hundred invita-
tions were sent out, and the creme de la creme of the
European population were on hand, including Gen-
eral Blanco, the governor of the islands.

The English club rarely gives a dance more than
once in five years, and when the engraved invitations
first appeared there was much talk and hobnobbing
among the Spaniards to see who had and who had
not been invited. All the greedy Dons who had ever
met any of the clubmen expected to be asked, and
considered it an insult not to receive an invitation.
One high official, who had himself been invited, wrote
to the committee seeking an invitation for some
friends. As, of course, only a limited number could
be accommodated at the club-house, the invitations
were strictly limited, and a reply was sent to the
Spanish gentleman in question, stating that there
were no more invitations to be had.

" Do you mean to insult me and my friends ? " he
wrote, "by saying that there are no more invitations

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 179

left for them ? Do yon inean to say that my friends
axe not gentlemen, and so you won't ask them ? I
must insist on an explanation, or satisfaction."

For several days before the party one might have
heard young women and girls who walked up and
down the Luneta talking nothing but dance, and the
Spanish society seemed to be divided up into two
distinct cliques, the chosen and the uninvited.

The chosen proceeded at once to starve themselves
and use what superfluous dollars they could collect
in buying new gowns at the large Parisian shops on
the Escolta. Most of the Spanish women in Manila
can well afford to be abstemious and devote the sur-
plus thus obtained to the ornamentation of their per-
sons, since they are so fairly stout that the fires of
their appetite can be kept going some time after actual
daily food-supplies have been cut off. The men, how-
ever, seem to be as slender as the women are robust,
and they, poor creatures, cannot endure a long fast.
Nevertheless, the cash-drawers of the Paris shops got
fat as the husbands of the wives who bought new
gowns there grew more slender ; and just before the
ball came off these merchant princes of the Philippines
actually offered to contribute five hundred dollars if
another dance should be given within a short time,
so great had been the rush of patrons to their attrac-
tive counters.

180 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

To make a long story short, after a lot of squab-
bles and wranglings among those who were invited
and those who were not, the night of the party came,
and only those who held the coveted cards were per-
mitted by the giants at the door to enter Paradise.

Japanese lanterns lighted the road which led from
the main highway to the club, and the old rambling
structure was aglow with a thousand colored cup-
lights that made it look like fairyland. Within and
without were dozens of palms and all sorts of tropi-
cal shrubs, and the entrance-way was one huge
bower-like fernery. Around the lower entrance-
room colored flags grouped themselves artistically,
and below a huge mass of bunting at the farther
end rose the grand staircase that led above. Up-
stairs, the ladies' dressing-room was most gorgeous,
and the walls were hung with costly, golden-wove
tapestries from Japan. The main parlor formed one
of the dancing-rooms and opened into two huge ad-
joining bed-chambers which were thrown together in
one suite. All around the walls and ceilings were gar-
lands and long festoons and wreaths, and everywhere
were bowers of plants, borrowed mirrors, and lights.

Out on the veranda, overhanging the river, were
clusters of small tables, glowing under fairy lamps,
and the railings were a mass of verdure.

The orchestra consisted of twenty-five natives,

YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 181

dressed in white shirts whose tails were not tucked
in, hidden behind a forest of plants, and as the clock
struck ten they began to coax from their instruments
a dreamy waltz. The guests began to pour in —
Spanish dons with their corpulent wives, and strap-
ping Englishmen with their leaner better halves.
The Spaniards, sniffing the air, all looked longingly
toward the supper-rooms, while the ladies who came
with them ambled toward the powder and paint
boxes in the boudoir. I suppose about two hundred
people in all were on hand, and the sight was indeed
gay. After every one had become duly hot from
dancing or duly hungry from waiting, supper was
served, and there was almost a panic as the Spanish
element with one accord made for the large room at
the extreme other end of the building, where dozens
of small tables glistened below candelabra with red
shades, and improvised benches groaned under the
weight of a great variety of refreshments.

Soon the slender caballeros got to look fatter in
the face, and the double chins of their ladies grew
doubler every moment. Knives, forks, and spoons
were all going at once, and talk was suspended. But
the room presented a pretty sight, with its fourscore
couples sitting around beneath the swaying pun-
kahs, and the soft warm light made beauties out of
many ordinary-looking persons.

182 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

After everybody was satisfied, dancing was re-
sumed in the big front rooms on the river, and the
gayety went on ; but the heavy supper made many of
the foreign guests grow dull, and the cool hours of
early morning saw everyone depart, carrying with
them or in them food enough for many days.

Thus ended the great ball given to balance the
debt of hospitality owed by the bachelors to their
married friends, and now will come the committee's
collectors for money to pay the piper.

January 31st.

Manila has been quite outdoing herself lately, and
the gayeties have been numerous. The opening of
the Royal Exposition of the Philippines took place
last week, and was quite as elaborate as the name
itself.

The Exposition buildings were grouped along the
raised ground filled in on the paddy-fields, by the
side of the broad avenue that divides our suburb of
Malate from that of Ermita, and runs straight back
inland from the sea. The architecture is good, the
buildings numerous, and with grounds tastefully dec-
orated with plants and fountains, it is, in a way, like
a pocket edition of the Chicago Exposition.

Everybody in town was invited to attend the open
ing ceremonies by a gorgeously gotten-up invitation,

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 183

and interesting catalogues of the purpose of the ex-
hibition and its exhibits were issued in both Spanish
and English. To be sure, the language in the
catalogue translated from the Spanish was often
ridiculous, and announcements were made of such
exhibits as "Collections of living animals of laboring
class," and " tabulated prices of transport terrestrial
and submarine." But all of the elite of Manila were
on hand at the ceremonies, from the Archbishop and
Governor-General down to my coachman's wife, and
bands played, flags waved in the fresh breeze, tongues
wagged, guns fired, and whistles blew. General
Blanco opened the fair with a well- worded speech on
the importance of the Philippines, of the debt that
the inhabitants owed to the protection of the mother-
country, and of the great future predestined for the
Archipelago. And just as the speaker had finished
and the closing hours of the day arrived, the new
electric lights were turned on for the first tima
Then all Manila, hitherto illuminated by the dull and
dangerous petroleum lamps, shone forth under the
radiance of several hundred arc-lights and a couple
of thousand incandescent ones.

The improvement is tremendous, aud the streets,
which have always been dim from an excess of real
tropical, visible, feelable, darkness, are now respect-
ably illuminated.

184 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

The exposition was opened on the name-day of the
little King of Spain, and every house in town was re-
quested, if not ordered, to hang out some sort of a
flag or decoration. It was said that a tine of $5
would be charged to those who did not garb their
shanties in colors of some sort, and all the natives
were particular to obey the law. It was indeed
instructive, if not pathetic, to see shawls, colored
handkerchiefs, red table-cloths, carpets, and even
sofa-cushions, hanging out of windows, or on poles
from poverty-stricken little nipa huts, and any article
with red or yellow in it seemed good enough to an-
swer the purpose. We, in turn, were also officially
requested to show our colors, and I hung out two bath-
wraps from our front window, articles which I had
picked up on the recent excursion to Mindanao, and
which the wild savages there wear down to the river
when they go to wash clothes or themselves. But
they likewise had enough red and yellow in their
composition to fill the bill, and, together with five
pieces of red flannel from my photographic dark-
room, our windows showed a most prepossessing ap-
pearance.

On the Sunday after the King's name-day, a costly
display of fireworks took place off the water, in
front of the Luneta, further to celebrate the occasion.
The bombs and rockets were ignited from large floats

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 185

anchored near the shore, while complicated set-
pieces were erected on tall bamboos standing up in
the water and bolstered from behind with supports
and guy-lines. The exhibition began shortly after
dinner, and never had I seen a crowd of such large
dimensions before in Manila. There must have been
twenty- five thousand people jammed into the near
vicinity of the promenade, and a great sea of faces
islanded hundreds of traps of all species and genders.

The display was excellent, and both of the large
military bands backed it up with good music. One of
the set pieces was a royal representation of a full-
rigged man-of-war carrying the Spanish flag, and she
was shown in the act of utterly annihilating an iron-clad
belonging to some indefinite enemy. The reflections
in the water doubled the beauty of the scene, and
with rockets, bombs, mines, parachutes, going up at
the same time, there was little intermission to the
excitement. Several rockets came down into the
crowd, and one alighted on the back of a pony, caus-
ing him to start off on somewhat of a tangent.
Otherwise there were no disasters, and it was nearly
midnight before the great audience scattered in all
directions.

The electric lights, of course, are of tremendous
interest to the more ignorant natives, and every
evening finds groups of the latter gathered around the

186 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

posts supporting the arc-lamps, looking upward at the
sputtering carbon, or examining the bugs which lose
their life in attempting to make closer analyses of
the artificial suns.

A fresh edition of the opera company has come out
again from Italy, and performances are given Tues-
days, Thursdays, and Sundays. Everybody, as usual,
is allowed behind the scenes during the intermis-
sions, and the other evening, in the middle of a most
pathetic scene in " Faust," a Yankee skipper, some-
what the jollier from a shore dinner, walked directly
across the back of the stage and took his hat off to
the audience. Episodes like this are hardly common,
but in Manila there are not the barriers to the stage-
door that exist in the U. S. A. The artillery-band
on the Luneta has several times played the " Wash-
ington Post March " which you sent me, and which
I gave to the fat, pleasant-faced conductor. The
championship games at the tennis-court have begun,
and all of the English colony generally assemble there
to see the play just before sunset. Small dinners
and dances are also numerous, and the cool weather
seems to be incubating gayety.

February 22d.

Manila is said to have the most complete astronom-
ical, meteorological, and seismological observatory
anywhere east of the Mediterranean. Not to miss

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 187

anything of such reputation, several of us decided to
make a call on Padre Faure, who presides over the
institution, and who is well known scientifically all
over the world. At the observatory we were cordially
received by an assistant, who spoke English well
enough to turn us off from using Spanish, and were
conducted over the establishment. Here were
machines which would write down the motions of
the earth in seismological disturbances, and which
conveyed to the ear various subterranean noises
going on below the surface. Still other instruments
were so delicate that they rang electric bells when
mutterings took place far underground, and thus
warned the observers of approaching trouble. An-
other, into which you could look, showed a moving
black cross on a white ground, that danced at all the
slight tremblings continually going on; and the
rumbling of a heavy cart over the neighboring high-
road would make it tremble with excitement. A
solid tower of rock twenty feet square extended up
through the building from bottom to top, and was en-
tirely disconnected with the surrounding structure.
On this column all of the earthquake-instruments were
arranged; and any sort of an oscillation that took
place would be recorded in ink on charts arranged for
the purpose. Various wires and electric connections
were everywhere visible, and an approaching disturb-

188 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

ance would be sure to set enough bells and tickers
a-going to arouse one of the attendants.

The great school-building in which the observatory
was placed was fully six hundred feet square, with a
large court-yard in the centre containing fountains
and tropical plants in profusion. After leaving the
lower portions of the building, we ascended through
long hallways, to visit the meteorological department
above. Barometers, thermometers, wind-gauges, rain-
measurers, and all sorts of recording instruments filled
a most interesting room ; and Padre Faure gave us a
long discourse on typhoons, earthquakes, and various
other phenomena. From the roof of the observatory
a splendid view of the city, Bay, and adjacent coun-
try may be had, and Manila lay before us steaming
in the sun. Before leaving, we saw the twenty -inch
telescope, constructed in Washington under the di-
rection of the Padre who was our guide, which is soon
to be installed in a special building constructed for the
purpose. He seemed much impressed by the United
States, and at our departure presented us with one
of the monthly observatory reports, which give the
; whole story of the movements of the earth, winds,
heavens, tides, stars, and clouds, at every hour of the
day and night, for every day during the month, and
for every month during the year.

Last Monday was again the usual bank-holiday;

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 189

and on the Saturday before, the customary three of
us who seem to be more energetic at seeing the coun-
try than our friends, decided to take another excur-
sion up the river into the hill-country.

In the forenoon we gave orders to the boys to get
ready the provisions, and meet us at the club-house
in the early afternoon. Our plan was to take one of
the light randans from the boat-house, row up the
river for twelve or fifteen miles, take carromatas up
into the hills to a place called Antipolo, and finally
to horseback it over the mountains to Bossa Bossa,
a lonely hill village, ten miles farther on.

The time came. All of our goods and chattels were
piled into the boat. We took off white coats, put on
our big broad-brimmed straw hats, turned up our
trouserloons, and prepared for a long row up against
the current. But, thanks to Providence, we were able
to hitch onto one of the stone-lighters that regularly
bring rock down from the lake district, for use on the
new breakwater and port-works at Manila, and which
was being towed up for more supplies. The sun got
lower and lower, and finally set, just as the moon rose
over the mountains. The sail in the soft light of
evening was very picturesque, and the banks were
lined with the usual collection of native huts, in front
of which groups of natives were either washing clothes
or themselves. Large freight cascos or small bancas

190 YESTEKDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

were either being poled up-stream by heated boat-
men, or were drifting lazily down with the current,
and everywhere a sort of indolent attractiveness pre-
vailed. We continued on behind the lighter until al-
most at the lake itself ; then cast adrift and branched
off into a small side-stream that ran up toward the
hills in a northerly direction.

On we wound, now between a deep fringe of bam-
boo - trees, now between open meadows, now be-
tween groups of thatched huts, and again through
clumps of fish-weirs, coming at last to a town called
Cainta, nearly an hour's row from the main stream.
We stopped beneath an old stone bridge that carried
the main turnpike to Manila from the mountains, and
were greeted by all the towns-people, who were out
basking in the moonlight. They had evidently never
seen a boat of the randan type before, and expressed
much curiosity at the whole equipment. Before many
moments the governor of the village appeared in the
background and asked us to put up at his residence.
Ten willing natives seized upon our goods and chat-
tels, others pulled the boat up on the sloping bank,
and we adjourned to the small thatched house where
lived our host. The Filipinos gathered around out-
side, the privileged ones came in, and everybody
stared. The governor did everything for our amuse-
ment ; called in singing-girls, with an old chap who

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 191

played on the guitar, and otherwise arranged for
our entertainment. At eleven he said "Shoo "and
everybody left. His wife gave us pieces of straw
matting to sleep on, and we stretched out upon one
of those familiar floors of bamboo slats which make
one feel like a pair of rails on a set of cross-ties.

Later the family all turned in on the floor in the
same manner, and soon the cool night-wind was
whistling up through the apertures.

Next morning, Sunday, a hot dusty ride of an hour
and a half, over a fearful road, continually ascending,
brought us to Antipolo, a stupid village commanding
a grand view over the plains toward Manila and the
Bay beyond. To find out where we could get ponies
to take us over the rough foot-path to Bossa Bossa,
we called at the big convento where live the priests
who officiate at the great white church, whose tower
is visible from the capital. Mass was just over, but
the stone corridors reverberated with loud jestings
and the click of billiard-balls above. On going up-
stairs, we broke in upon a group of padres playing
billiards, drinking beer, smoking cigars, and cracking
jokes ad libitum. They received us cordially, did
not seem inclined to talk much on religious subjects,
but advised us where we might find the necessary
horseflesh. Not so much impressed with their spirit-
uality as with their courtesy, we left, got three ponies

192 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

and two carriers, and started out for the ride over the
mountains.

The path was narrow and steep, the sun was hot,
but the scenery was good. On and up we went, until
the view back and down over the lower country be-
came most extensive. Across brooks, over stones,
through gullies, and over trees carried us to the last
rise, and after passing through a grove of mangoes
we came to the edge of the ridge. Down below, in a
fair little valley that looked like a big wash-basin,
lay Bossa Bossa, a small collection of houses shut-
ting in a big church without any steeple. Squarely
up behind, on the other side of the valley, rose the
lofty peaks of the Cordilleras, and the scene was
good enough for the most critical.

On descending to the isolated little pueblo, we got
accommodation in the best house of the place, belong-
ing to the native Governor, and adjourned for rest
and refreshments. All we had left to eat in our
baskets were two cold chickens, three biscuits, and
four bottles of soda. We sent out for more food, and
in half an hour a boy came back with the only articles
that the market afforded — two cocoanuts. The house
in which we were seemed to be the only one in town
that possessed a chair, and, as it was, we found it
more comfortable to sit on the floor. This was the
centre of the great hunting-district, and all around in

A Half Caste. The Little Flower-girl at the Opera. See page

YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 193

the hills and mountains deer and wild boar were
abundant. During the following night it got so cold
that it was possible to see one's breath, and without
coverings as we were, the whole party dreamed of arctic
circles and polar bears. At daylight next morning,
numb with the cold, we sat down to a breakfast con-
sisting of carabao milk and hard bread made of
pounded-rice flour, and felt pretty fairly well removed
from tropics and civilization. The old church, which
we could see out of the window, stood in a small plaza,
and the steeple, which consisted of four tall posts
covered by a small roof of thatch that protected a
group of bells from the morning dew, was off by
itself in a corner of the churchyard. A long clothes-
line seemed to lead from the bells to a native house
across the street, and we learned that the sexton was
accustomed to lie in bed and ring the early morning
chimes by wagging his right foot, to which the string
was attached.

On the return trip we met a large party of hunters
coming up from Manila for a week's deer-shooting,
and by noon got back to Antipolo, where we rested
in the police-station to wait for our carromatas that
were to arrive at one o'clock.

The return to Cainta was as hot and dusty as the
advance, but we were pleasantly received by our
friend the governor, who had instructed the " boys" to

194 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

have the refreshments ready for us. Later in the
afternoon, we prepared to return to the metropolis,
and the whole village came down to see us off. The
governor refused to accept money for the use of his
house, we were all invited to come again, and amid
a chorus of cheers we shoved off for Manila.

The row down took only three hours, but on getting
to the club, at moonrise, it seemed as if we had been
away three weeks.

Exacting Harbor Regulations— The Eleanor takes French Leave— Loss
of the Gravina — Something about the Native Ladies — Ways of
Native Servants — A Sculptor who was a Dentist — Across the
Bay to Orani— Children in Plenty— A Public Execution by the
Garrote.

April 19th.

IF a ship in the Bay desires to load or discharge
cargo on Sundays or religious holidays, permission
can only be obtained through the Archbishop, not
the Governor-General. The Easter season has come
and gone, and as the Captain of the Esmeralda could
not successfully play on the feelings of that highest
dignitary of the church, his steamer had to lie idle
for the holidays, and so miss connecting with the
Peking, which ought to have taken the United States
mail.

The American yacht Eleanor dropped anchor in the
Bay the other afternoon, and it seemed good again to
see the countenances of some of our countrymen. It
appears the Spanish officials did not consent to treat
her with the courtesy which a yacht or war-ship mer-
its, and went so far as to station carabineros on her

decks, as is customary on merchant-vessels to prevent

195

196 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

smuggling. The Eleanor presented a fine appear-
ance as she lay among the fleet of more prosaic craft,
aud her rails were decorated with Gatling guns put
there for the voyage up through the southern archi-
pelagoes where pirates reign. On the Wednesday
before Holy Thursday, the owner of the Eleanor
decided to start for Hong Kong, that his guests might
enjoy Easter Sunday in those more civilized districts
that surround the English cathedral. The yacht,
like any merchantman, was obliged to get her clear-
ance papers from the custom-house before she sailed,
and to that end the Captain went ashore shortly after
midday. But the chief of the harbor office had gone
home for a siesta, remarking that he would not return
until Monday, and that any business coming up would
have to wait till then for attention.

" But I must have my papers," said the Captain,
" for we leave to-night for China."

" Them you cannot have till Monday," replied the
hireling in charge.

"Then I shall have to sail without them," an-
swered the Captain, and he stormed out of the office
to find our consul, whom he hoped would straighten
matters out. But the efforts of the consul were of no
avail. The king-pin of the harbor office refused to be
interviewed, and the Captain of the yacht returned
aboard with fire in his eye. After a council of war

YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 197

had been held, it was decided to sail, papers or no
papers, and the two soldiers who were pacing up and
down the deck were told the vessel was going to sea.

" But we won't let you go without your papers,"
said they.

" Papers or no papers, we are going to sea to-night,"
roared the Captain. " And if you fellows don't git
aboard into that boat mighty quick, we'll be feeding
you to the sharks."

The Gatling guns and show of rifles in the com-
panion-way looked eloquent, and the two carabineros,
murmuring that they would surely be killed for neg-
lect of duty when they got ashore, were pushed
down the gangway into a row-boat as the Elea-
nor got her anchor up, and steamed out of the Bay
in the face of Providence and the southwest wind,
almost across the bows of the Spanish flagship
Reina Cristina. A tremendous diplomatic hullabaloo
resulted. The consul was summoned, the guards
were blown up by the discharge of verbal powder, and
it almost looked as if our representative would have
to send for war-ships. But the matter has finally
been straightened out, and the passengers on the
Eleanor have probably had their Easter Sunday at
Hong Kong.

Curiously enough, for April, another typhoon has
recently sailed through the gap in the mountains to

198 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

the north of our capital, and gone swirling over to
China, leaving in its wake a sunken steamer, which
foundered with her living freight of close to three
hundred souls. Out in front of the big steamship
office across the way hundreds of natives are inquir-
ing for their brothers or husbands or children. It
seems the Gravina, a ship of the best part of a
thousand tons, was coming down from the north,
heavily loaded with rice, tobacco, and native boys,
who, for not paying their tax bills, had been drafted
into service for the purpose of being sent against the
savages in Mindanao. She had only fifty more miles
to go before reaching the entrance to Manila Bay,
when the barometer fell, the wind hauled to the
northwest, and the typhoon struck her. Her after-
hatchway was washed overboard, and, deep in the
water as she was, the seas washed over into the open-
ing. As fast as fresh coverings were substituted they
were ripped off and carried away. The engines
became disabled, the water rushed into the boiler-
room, putting out the fires, and the passengers, who
were locked into the cabins, were panic-stricken.
The steamer began to settle, and under the onslaught
of a big sea, accompanied with terrific wind, suddenly
heeled over and foundered with all on board, save
three, the Captain standing on the bridge as she went
down, crying "Viva EspaHa." Two natives and a

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 199

Spanish, woman got clear of the ship before she
sucked them under, and floated about on an awning-
pole and a deck-table. Scarcely had the survivors
got clear of one danger before a shark swooped down
on the Spanish woman, and, attracted by her lighter
color, bit off a limb. He paid no attention to the
two natives kicking out their feet near by, and,
though neither of them could swim a stroke, they
managed to paddle ashore on their supports, after
being in the water two nights and a day.

These two men, the only survivors of the large
passenger-list of the Gravina, came into our office
yesterday, and, after giving a graphic description of
the catastrophe, easily got us to loosen our purse-
strings. The accident is the worst that has occurred
for many a day, and there is a gloom over the whole
city. The newspapers came out with black borders,
and many families are bereaved.

May 20th.

The more I see of these native servants, the more
I appreciate that they are great fabricators and ex-
cuse-makers. Your boy, for example, every now and
then wants an advance of five or ten dollars on his
salary. His father has just died, he tells you, and he
needs the money to pay for the saying of a mass for
the repose of his soul. Then comes another boy, who
says that by his sister's marrying somebody or other

200 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

his aunt has become his grandmother, and he wants
cinco pesos, to buy her a present of a fighting-cock
or something else. This matter of relationship here
in the Philippines is a most delicate one to keep
control of, and in the matter of deaths, births, and
marriages among your servants' relations it is very
essential that you keep an accurate list of the family
tree, so that you may check up any tendency on
their part to kill off their fathers and mothers more
than twice or three times during the year for the
purposes of self-aggrandizement. As an example of
this, my own boy actually had the cheek to ask me for
the loan of a dozen dollars to arrange for the repose
of the soul of one of his relatives I had once before
assisted him to bury.

I seem to have gone a long way in my chronicles
without speaking much of the native " ladies " in Ma-
nila, and I owe them an apology. But one of them
the other day so swished her long pink calico train
in front of a pony that was cantering up to the club
with a carromata in which two of us were seated, that
we were dumped out into a muddy rice-field by the
wayside. So the apology should be mutual. The
costumes worn by the women are far from simple and
are made up of that brilliant skirt with long train
that is swished around and tucked into the belt in
front, the short white waist that, at times divorced

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 201

from the skirt below, has huge flaring sleeves of pina
fibre which show the arms, and the costly pina hand-
kerchief which, folded on the diagonal, encircles the
neck. They wear no hats, often go without stockings,
and invariably walk as if they were carrying a pail of
water on their heads. They generally chew betel-
nuts, which color the mouth an ugly red, smoke
cigars, and put so much cocoanut-oil on their straight,
black hair that it is not pleasant to get to leeward of
them in an open tram-car. Otherwise they are gen-
erally the mothers of many children and often play
well on the harp.

I made a call on the local dentist yesterday, and
found him sitting on a wooden figure of St. Peter,
carving some expression into the face. I thought
I had got into a carpenter's shop instead of a den-
tal establishment, and apologized for the intrusion.
But the gentleman said he was the dentist, and
dropped his mallet and chisel to usher me into his
other operating-room. It is quite a jump from carv-
ing out features of apostles to filling teeth, but on
being assured that he had received due instruction
from an American dentist, I allowed him to proceed
to business. The whole operation lasted about seven
and one-half minutes, and by the time I had got out
my dollar to pay him for the filling I swallowed
soon after, he was again at work on Biblical subjects.

202 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

All in all it doesn't pay to neglect one's health in
the Philippines, for the only English doctor that
Manila boasts of has been here so long that the cli-
mate has shrivelled up his memory. After he has
attended your serious case of fever or influenza for
several days, he will suddenly stroll in some morning
and give you a sinking feeling with the words :

" Oh, by the way, what is the matter with you ? "

This is hardly comforting to one who considers
himself a gone coon, but in justice to our friend the
medico, I must say he never displays these symptoms
to patients whose case is really getting desperate.

Tons and tons of water have been drunk up by
the clouds of late, and have just now begun to be
unceremoniously dumped down upon flat Manila, so
that she has seemed likely to be washed into the
sea. But rain has been badly needed. A long heat
has made many the worse for wear, and the doctors
have all said that unless the rain came soon, an epi-
demic would probably break out.

Before the showers began, we improved the spare
time of another Sunday and bank-holiday by an
aquatic excursion to some of the provincial towns
away across to the north side of Manila Bay. Don
Capitan, the purchaser of our fire-engine and the mil-
lionaire ship-owner who runs several lines of steamers
and storehouses, was our host, and invited us to spend

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 203

the days as Ms guests aboard the trim paddle-wheel
steamer that makes regular trips to the bay ports.
Early on Sunday morning we started from the quay
in front of the big hemp-press, and while the lower
decks of the steamer were crowded with native mar-
ket-women, fishermen, and Chinese, the more sightly
portions of the upper promenade were reserved for
us and provided with Vienna chairs. Breakfast was
served in a large chart-room connected with the wheel-
house, and was a fitting accompaniment to the fresh
sail out of the river through the shipping.

After discharging groups of passengers and freight
into large tree-trunk boats at several little villages, we
came at noon to Orani, the end of the outward run.
The sister-in-law of the jet-black captain owned the
largest house in the village, and put it at our disposal.
Our advent had been heralded the day before, and a
groaning table supported a sumptuous repast.

There were four of us besides the half-caste family
of the captain's sister-in-law, and an old withered-up
Spaniard who used to be governor of the village.
Various cats roamed around under the table, and on
top were toothpicks built up into cones, Spanish
sausages, olives, flowers, and fruit with an unpro-
nounceable name, that looked like freshly dug pota-
toes well covered with soil.

Beside each chair was a red clay jar, into which

204 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

each participator in the repast could from time to
time transfer such articles as were apparently unswal-
lowable, and all around stood thick-lipped serving
boys, who looked as if they were only waiting to pour
soup in one's lap, or garlic gravy down one's neck. The
feast began with soup, and though the family could
not well eat that with their knives, they could the re-
maining courses. After soup came the pucliero, that
mixture of beans, potatoes, cabbage, tough meat,
pork, grass, garlic, and grease, and I steeled myself
for the fray. Next came cooked hen with a limpid
gravy accompaniment, and as the chicken had been
alive up to within a few moments of going into the
kettle, the question of attack was difficult. Then fol-
lowed in succession cow's tongue and roast goat, fish,
salad with sliced tomatoes, and dessert consisting of
those fluffy affairs made of sugar and eggs which
taste like captivated sea-foam. As is always custom-
ary, cheese and fruit were served together, but while
a servant had to carry the fruit, the cheese seemed
inclined to walk around by itself.

In due season all the debris was removed. A boy
went in pursuit of the cheese and the table was cleared
for strong coffee that looked dangerous. The mortal-
ity, however, among the party was not great, and all
those who were able to get up from the table went to
take a siesta.

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 205

At about four, we were awakened by the familiar
noise coming from the grinding of an ice-cream freez-
er, and afternoon tea, consisting of chocolate, sand-
wiches, cakes and frozen pudding, was served half an
hour later. At five we were to take a drive along the
shore in the only two landaus that the place possessed,
and since the padre who lived close by in the big
church had been good enough to lend us one, we
called on him in state, taking with us, for his refresh-
ment, a small caldron of ice-cream. His greeting
was right cordial, and after amusing us with stories
of his many adventures, told in fluent English, he
dismissed us with his blessing.

Two of our party got into his carriage, while other
two went in that belonging to the governor of the
town, and behind smart-stepping ponies we bowled
off up the road that led west along the Bay.

Old Malthus would have been interested to see the
number of children that exist in these provincial
villages, and it really seemed as if at least one hundred
and two per cent, of the population were kids. About
eighteen infants could be seen leaning out of every
window, in every native hut, and in the streets, by-
ways, and hedges they were thick as locusts. Most
of these children trailed little else than clouds of
glory, since clothes were scarce and expensive. An
undershirt was all that any of them seemed to wear,

206 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

and only the dudes of the one hundred and two per
cent, wore that.

Much to our amusement, the loiterers by the way-
side everywhere saluted us with a " Buenos tardes,
Padre" and it appeared that since the holy father is
the only one who drives regularly in a landau, the
whole population thought of course we must be he, or
some of his saintly brethren. And so we went until
the gathering darkness compelled a return to the start-
ing-point. An elaborate supper, consisting of hard-
shelled crabs and other indigestibles, was followed
by an impromptu dance and musicale, and the even-
ing ended in a burst of song.

Next morning the little steamer took us and a load
of fish and vegetables back to the capital.

July 6th.

Our modern journals, I know, rejoice to go into all
the gruesome details of crime and its punishment, and
many of their readers take as much morbid pleasure
in poring over accounts of hangings, pictures of the
culprit, diagrams of his cell, and last conversations
with the jailer, as do the reporters in getting the in-
formation with which to make up long, padded articles
paid for by the column. I am not morbidly curious
myself, and trust you will not think I went to see the
capital punishment of two murderers for any other
than purely scientific reasons.

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 207

The two men who were executed on July 4th,
just passed, were convicted of chopping a Spaniard
to pieces to get the few dollars which he kept in his
house, and to avenge themselves for harsh treatment.
They were nothing more than native boys, one twenty
and the other twenty-two, employed as servants in
the family of the unfortunate victim. In short, they
were sentenced to death by the garrote, and to the
end of carrying out the decree a platform was erected
in the open parade-ground behind the Luneta. But
the people in the neighborhood objected. The women
said they could not sleep from thinking over it, and
could not bear to have their children see the scaffold.
General Blanco was petitioned, and the place of ex-
ecution was changed to a broad avenue that leads
down through the back part of Manila, by the public
slaughter-house. Surely the selection was appro-
priate.

On the fatal day, my colleague and I drove to the
scene shortly after sunrise, and crowds of people had
already begun to come together from the adjoining
districts. Carriages of all classes rolled in from all
directions. Chinamen with cues, natives with their
wives, women with their infants, young girls and
children, old men and maidens, were all there, dressed
in their best clothes.

I knew it would be useless to stand in the crowd,

208 YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

so I pushed over toward a nipa hut, whose windows,
which were filled with natives, looked fairly out on
the scaffold itself. In the name of my camera I asked
admittance, which was cordially accorded, since we
were "Ingleses," and on going to the upper floor
we had a free view over the crowd below toward the
fatal platform, with its two posts to which were at-
tached two narrow seats. The crowd increased ; they
climbed into bamboo-trees, which bent to the ground ;
they tried to surge up on the lower framework of the
house in which we were standing, and only desisted
as the proprietress slashed the encroachers right and
left with a bamboo-cane. The roofs of neighboring
houses were black with people, the windows swarmed,
and the street below heaved. Our hostess was pleas-
ant, though fiery, and all she wanted in return for
our admission was a photograph of herself. The
favor was granted, and she gave us two chairs to sit
in. The crowd increased, and the guards had hard
work keeping back the struggling mass. Every avail-
able square inch of space was filled, and a sea of
heads pulsated before us.

At last, cries of " aqui vienen" (here they come)
arose, and the solemn procession came into view after
its long journey from the central jail, over a mile
away. First came the cavalry, then a group of
priests, among whom marched a man wearing an

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 209

apron, carrying the sacred banner of the Church,
embroidered in black and gold. Next marched the
prison officials, and behind them came two small,
open tip-carts, drawn by ponies, in which travelled
the condemned men, each supported by a couple of
priests who held crucifixes before their eyes, exhort-
ing them to confess and believe.

Following the carts, which were surrounded by a
square of soldiers, walked the executioner himself,
a condemned criminal, but spared from being exe-
cuted by his choosing to accept the office of public
executioner. Last of all came a small company of
soldiers, with bayonetted guns, and the whole pro-
cession advanced to the foot of the steps leading to
the platform.

The garroting instrument seems to consist of a col-
lar of brass, whose front-piece opens on a hinge, and
part of whose rear portion is susceptible to being
suddenly pushed forward by the impulse of a big
fourth-rate screw working through the post, some-
thing after the system of a letter-press. The criminal
sentenced to death is seated on a small board attached
to the upright, his neck is placed in the brass collar,
the front-piece is snapped to, and when all is ready,
the executioner merely gives the handle of the screw
a complete turn. The small moving back-piece in the
collar is by this means suddenly pushed forward

210 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

against the top of the spine of the unfortunate, and
death comes instantaneously from the snapping of
the spinal cord.

The executioners in Manila have always been them-
selves criminals, and in breaking the spinal cords of
their fellow-criminals, they certainly pay a price for
keeping their own vertebrae intact. Like most men
in their profession, however, they are well paid, and
this operator got sixteen dollars besides his regular
monthly salary of twenty, for each man on whom he
turned the screw.

The sight of the unfortunate prisoners in the little
carts, supported by the priests, was pitiable in the
extreme, and their faces bore marks of unforgetable
anguish. The priests ascended the platform, and the
man with the embroidered banner was careful to
stand far away at the side, for, according to the re-
ligious custom of the epoch, a condemned man who
merely happens to touch the standard of the Church
on his way to the scaffold cannot thereafter be ex-
ecuted, but suffers only life imprisonment.

The executioner, in a derby hat, black coat, white
breeches, and no shoes, took his position behind
the post at one side of the scaffold, and the first vic-
tim was carried up out of the cart and seated on the
narrow bench. He was too weak to help himself or
make resistance ; the black cloak was thrown over his

The Fourth of July, '95. Execution by the Garrote.

" My watch stopped and the cord-pull to my camera broke just as the screw was turned
on the first niiin to bu executed." See page 212.

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 211

shoulders, a rope tied around his waist, the hood
drawn down over his face, and the collar sprung
around his neck. Then, while two priests, with un-
covered heads, held their crucifixes up before him,
and sprinkled holy water over the hood and long,
black death-robes, the chief prison official waved his
sword, the executioner gave the big screw-handle a
sudden twist till his arms crossed, and without a mo-
tion of any sort, except a slight forward movement
of the naked feet, the first of the condemned men had
solved the great problem.

The second poor wretch all the while cowered in
the little cart, but when his turn came he ascended
the steps with more fortitude. After he had put
on the long black gown and hood, he seated himself
on the bench at the second post and the same process
was repeated. But the screw-thread seemed to be
rusty, and one of the native officials helped the exe-
cutioner give the handle an additional turn, for which
he was promptly fined $20. The doctor tarried a
few moments on the scaffold, the priests read several
prayers and shook holy water over the immovable
black-robed figures wedded to the posts, and then,
after one of the acolytes had nearly set fire to the
flowing gown of the head padre with his long can-
dle, everyone descended.

The remnants of the procession returned to the

212 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

prison, the troops stationed themselves in a large
hollow square around the scaffold, and two dark,
motionless figures locked to two posts were left in
the hot sun till noon, set out against the blue back-
ground of sky and clouds.

The crowds began to disperse, the young girls
chatted and joked with each other, the curious were
satisfied, and the bamboo-trees were left to lift their
heads at leisure.

Thus began Manila's Fourth of July, and curi-
ously enough, my watch stopped and the cord-pull
to my instantaneous camera broke just as the screw
was turned on the first man to be executed.

XI

Lottery Chances and Mischances— An American Cigarette-Making
Machine and its Fate — Closing up Business — How the Foreigner
Feels Toward Life in Manila — Why the English and Germans
Return— Restlessness among the Natives— Their Persecution —
Departure and Farewell.

August 25th.

I LOST $80,000 yesterday. Perhaps I have spoken
of lottery tickets, but have failed to say what an
important institution in Manila the "Loteria Na-
cional " really is. Drawings come each month over
in the Lottery Building in Old Manila, and every-
body is invited to inspect the fairness with which
the prize-balls drop out of one revolving cylinder
like a peanut-roaster while the ticket-number balls
slide out of the other. The Government runs the lot-
tery to provide itself with revenue, and starts off by
putting twenty-five per cent, of the value of the
ticket-issue into its own coffers. If all the tickets
are not sold, the Loteria Nacional keeps the bal-
ance for itself and promptly pockets whatever prizes
those tickets draw. Lottery tickets are everywhere,
in every window, and urchins of all sizes and gen-
ders moon about the streets selling little twentieths

213

214: YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

to such as haven't the ten dollars to buy a whole
one. Guests at dinner play cards for lottery tickets
paid for by the losers, Englishmen bet lottery tickets
that the Esmeralda won't bring the mail from home,
and natives dream of lucky numbers, to go searching
all over town for the pieces that bear the figures of
their visions.

Four months ago I got reckless enough to plank
$10 on the counter of the little shop, which, at the
corner of the Escolta and the Puente de Espana,
is said to dispense the largest number of winning
tickets, and became the owner of number 1700. It
sounded too even, too commonplace, to be lucky,
but as it was considered unlucky to change a ticket
once handed you, I trudged off and locked the paper
in the safe. The drawing came, and 1700 drew $100.
Fortune seemed bound my way, so I made arrange-
ments (as so many buyers of lucky tickets do) to keep
1700 every month. My name was put in the paper
as holding 1700, and for three long months I remem-
bered to send my servant to the Government office ten
days before the drawing, for the ticket reserved in my
name. But for three drawings it never tempted for-
tune. Last week I forgot lottery and everything else
in our further struggle with a new piece of American
machinery which was being introduced for the first
time to Manila, and woke up to-day to find it the

. YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 215

occasion of the drawing. My ticket — uncalled for —
had been sold. At noon I walked by the little
tienda whose proprietor had first given me the fatal
number, to see him perched up on a step-ladder,
posting up the big prizes, as fast as they came to
his wife by telephone. The space opposite the first
prize of $80,000 was empty. His wife handed him
a paper. Into the grooves he slid a figure 1, then
a 7, and then two ciphers. Ye gods — my ticket!
The capital prize — not mine ! $80,000 lost because I
forgot — and to think that the whole sum would have
been paid in hard, jingling coin, for which I should
have had to send a dray or<»two I But I am not quite
so inconsolable as my friends the two Englishmen,
who kept their ticket for two years, and at last, dis-
couraged, sold it, Chrismas-eve, to a native clerk,
only to wake up next day and find it had drawn
$100,000. They have never been the same since.
Nor have I.

And the machine that caused all the trouble — an-
other whim of our rich friend, the owner of the fire-
engine, who saw from the catalogues on our office
table that American cigarette-machines could turn
out 125,000 pieces a day against some 60,000, the
capacity of the French mechanisms, which were in use
in all the great factories in Manila. He wanted one
for his friend that ran the little tobacco-mill up in

216 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

a back street, for whom he furnished the capital.
If it worked, he was in the market for two dozen
more, and vowed to knock spots out of the big
Compania General and Fabrica Insular.

Out came our machine some weeks ago, and with
it two skilled machinists to make it work. The big
companies pricked up their ears and appeared clear-
ly averse to seeing an American article introduced,
which should outclass the French machines for which
they had contracted.

One morning the two machinists came to our office
and handed us an anonymous note which had been
thrust under the door of their room at the Hotel
Oriente :

" Stop your work — it will be better for you."

It was perhaps not diplomatic, but we told them the
story of the two Protestant missionaries who some
years before came to Manila and attempted to preach
their doctrines in the face of Catholic disapproval.
One morning they found a piece of paper beneath
their door in the same hotel, reading :

" You are warned to desist your preaching."

Paying no attention to the warning, they woke up
two sunrises later on to find another note beneath
the door:

" Stop your work and leave the city, or take the
consequences.'*

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 217

Still they heeded not ; and a third paper under the
door, some days later, read :

" For the last time you are warned to leave. Heed
this and beware of neglect to do so."

But, like Christian soldiers, they were only the
more zealous in their work.

In two days more they were found dead in their
rooms — poisoned.

Our friends, the engineers, were not soothed by a
relation of these facts, but kept on with their work.
In three days they, too, got a second warning :

"Leave your work and go away by the first
steamer."

Things began to look serious, and the more timid
mechanic of the two could hardly be restrained from
buying a ticket to Hong Kong.

When, however, in two more days, a third piece
of yellow paper was slipped into their rooms, bear-
ing the pencilled words, " For the last time you are
told to take the next steamer," the matter assumed
such proportions that we arranged to have them see
the Archbishop, whose knowledge is far-reaching
and whose power complete. The letters were sud-
denly stopped and the work on the machine carried
to a successful completion.

Then came the day of trial, and invitations were
extended to interested persons to view the operation.

218 YESTERDAYS IN" THE PHILIPPINES

The machine was started, and the cigarettes began
to sizzle out at the rate of nearly two hundred to the
minute. But scarcely had the run begun before there
was a sudden jar, several of the important parts gave
way, and the machine was a wreck. It had been tam-
pered with, and it was evident that the instigators of
the anonymous letters had taken this more effective
means of stopping competition.

The parts could not be made in Manila ; America
was far away, and our two machinists have just gone
home in disgust.

Is it a wonder that I forgot the lottery drawing ?

Somehow there are currents of trouble in the air,
and some of the old residents say they wouldn't be
surprised to see the outbreak of a revolution among
the natives. Peculiar night-fires have been seen now
for some time, burning high up on the mountain-
sides and suddenly going out. There seems to be
some anti-American sentiment among the powers
that be, and only last week matters came to a crisis
by the Government putting an embargo on the busi-
ness of one of the largest houses here, in which an
American is a partner. Smuggled silk was discov-
ered coming ashore at night, supposedly from the
Esmeralda, and as that steamer was consigned to
the firm in question, the authorities demanded pay-
ment of a fine of $30,000. Our friends refused, the

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 219

officials closed the doors of their counting-room, our
consul cabled to Japan for war- ships again, the Gov-
ernor-General read the telegram, hasty summons were
given to the parties concerned, heated arguments fol-
lowed, and the matter was finally smoothed over on
the surface.

But there seems to be a distinct feeling against us,
and we have been instructed from home to prepare
to leave — making arrangements to turn our business
into the hands of an English firm, who will act as
agents after our departure.

September 20th.

The cable has come, and we hope by next month
to leave this land of intrigue and iniquity. It has
treated me well, but complications are daily appear-
ing in the business world, and if we get away without
suddenly being dragged into some civil dispute it
will be delightful.

I am glad to have been here these two years nearly,
but it is time to thicken up one's blood again in cooler
climes, and I feel these fair islands are no place for
the permanent residence of an American. We seem
to be like fish out of water here in the Far East, and
as few in numbers. The Englishman and the German
are everywhere, and why shouldn't they be? Their
home-roosts are too small for them to perch upon, and
they are born with the instinct to fly from their nests

220 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

to some foreign land. But, America is so big that we
ought not to feel called upon to swelter in the
tropics amid the fevers and the ferns, and I, for one,
am content to " keep off the grass " of these distant
foreign colonies.

The Englishman or German comes out here on a
five-years' contract, and generally runs up a debit bal-
ance the first year that keeps him busy economizing
the other four. At the end of his first season, he
wishes he were at home. At the end of the second,
he has exhausted all the novelties of the new situa-
tion. At the close of the third, he has settled down
to humdrum life. At the end of the fourth, he has
become completely divorced from home habits and
modern ideals. And at the close of the fifth, he goes
home a true Filipino, though thinking all the while he
is glad to get away. He says he is never coming back,
but wiser heads know better. He has heard about
America, and goes home via the States, to see Niagara
and New York. But his first laundry-bill in San
Francisco so scatters those depreciated silver " Mex-
icans," which have lost half their value in being turned
into gold, that he takes the fast express to the Atlan-
tic coast, and leaves our shores by the first steamer.
At home, his friends have all got married or had
appendicitis, and the bustle of London, the raw rain-
storms of the cold weather and the conventionality of

YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 221

life all bring up memories of the Philippines, which
now seem to lie off there in the China Sea surrounded
by a halo. And so, before a year is out, he renews
his contract, and at the end of a twelvemonth goes
sailing back Manilaward to take up the careless life
where he left it, and grow old in the Escolta or the
Luneta. In London he paid his penny and took the
'bus, he lived in a dingy room, and packed his own
bag. But in Manila, with no more outlay, he owns
his horse and carriage, he lives in a spacious bungalow
with many rooms, and he lets his servants wait on
him by inches. How do I know ? Oh, because we've
talked it all over, now that our turn for departure
comes next.

The whisperings of a restlessness among the na-
tives continue, and it is hard to see why indeed they
do not rise up against their persecutors, the tax-gath-
erers and the guardia civil. Ten per cent, of their
average earnings have to go to pay their poll-taxes,
and if they cannot produce the receipted bills from
their very pockets on any avenue or street-corner, to
the challenge of the veterana, they are hustled off to
the cuartel, and you are minus your dinner or your
coachman. Once in the hands of the law, they are
then drafted into the native regiments for operations
against those old enemies, the Moros, in the fever-
stricken districts of Mindanao, and their wives or fam-

222 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

ilies are left to swallow Spanish reglamientos. They
have not forgotten their brothers, who, dragged down
from the north, went to the bottom in the typhoon
which pushed the Gravina down. They have not for-
gotten the execution in the public square. They re-
member that the Spaniards address them with the
servile pronoun " tu" not "usted" and some day they
may remember not to forget. They are not quarrel-
some, but they are treacherous ; they are not fighters,
but when they run amuck they kill right and left.
They do not seem to have many wants save to be left
alone, to be able to shake a cocoanut from the palm
for their morning's meal, or to collect the shakings
from a thousand trees and ship them to Manila ; to
collect the few strands of fibre to sew the nipa thatch
to the frame of their bamboo roof, or to gather enough
to fill a schooner for the capital ; in fact, to be able to
work or not to work, and to know that the results of
their labor are to be theirs, not somebody else's.

But what has all this got to do with our hegira ?
These last days have been replete with the labors
attendant on breaking camp before the long march.
Clearings out of furniture, selling one's ponies and
carriages, closing up of books, shipping of one's cases
and curios on those hemp-ships that are to start on
the long 20,000-mile voyage to Boston, and trying to
think of the things that have been left undone, or

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 223

ought to be done, have all gone to make the season a
busy one.

Now that it has come down to actually leaving
Manila, I begin to feel the home sickness that comes
from tearing one's self away from the midst of friends
and a congenial life. I shall miss the hearty Eng-
lishmen with whom I rowed or played tennis or
went into the country. I shall miss the servants who
got so little for making life the easier. I shall miss
the ponies, the dogs with the black tongues, and the
cats with the crooks in their tails ; the big fire-engine
which we used to run, and which has now been var-
nished over to save trouble in cleaning ; the Luneta,
with its soft breezes and good music ; the walks out on
to the long breakwater to see the sunset, and the hob-
nobbing with the old salts from the ships in the bay,
who called our office the little American oasis in the
midst of a great desert of foreign houses. But the
clock has struck, and the Esmeralda ought early next
month to start us on the forty-day voyage back to
God's country.

October 22d.

Is this sleep, or not sleep ? Is it reality or fancy?
Am I laboring under a hallucination, a weird phan-
tasmagoria, or are my powers of appreciation, my
efferent nerve-centres and their connecting links, my
sum total of receptive faculties, doing their duty ? I

224 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

feel hypnotized. I kick myself to see if this is real,
and am only led to conclude it is by looking into my
sewing-kit, where the needles are rusty, the thread
gone, and the depleted stock of suspender-buttons
wrongly shoved into the partition labelled " piping-
cord." I never did know what piping-cord was. My
socks are holy, my handkerchiefs have burst in tears,
and my lingerie in general looks as if it had been
used for a Chinese ensign on one of the ships that
fought in the naval battle of the Yalu. For two
years those garments have held together under the
peculiar processes of Philippine laundering, but
now that barbarians have once more got hold of
them and subjected them to modern treatment,
they recognize the enemy and go to pieces. And
so the condition of my clothes leads me to believe
I am awake, although everything else suggests the
dream.

Actually away from Manila, actually eating food
that is food once more, actually sleeping on springs
and mattresses, putting on heavier clothes, talking
the English language, meeting civilized people, and
realizing what it means to be homeward bound ! It
seems unreal after those two years of Manila life that
was so different, so divorced from the busy life of
the western world ; much more unreal than did the
new Philippine environment appear two years ago,

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 225

after jumping into it fresh from God's country, as the
Captain called it.

Here we are, eight days out from Manila, steaming
up through that far-famed inland sea of Japan, on the
good ship Coptic, bound for San Francisco ; and for
the life of me those twenty-four moons just passed
all seem to huddle into yesterday. Surely it was only
the day before that the China was taking me and
my trunks the other way. And so it takes but eight
short days of new experiences, new food, new air, to
efface completely the effect of seven hundred yester-
days in the Philippines. Those whole seven hundred
seem now as but one, and when I think of all the
housekeeping, the bookkeeping, the hemp-pressing,
and the cheerful putting up with all sorts of things,
they all seem to be playing leapfrog with each other
in the dream of a night, and I wake up to find the
pines of Japan lending a certain cordial to the air
that is very grateful. We never knew what we were
missing in Manila in the slight matter of eating
alone until we got over to Hong Kong again, and it is
perhaps just as well we didn't. To think of the " dead
hen," as they call it, and rice, the daily couple of eggs,
the fried potatoes, and the banana-fritters on which
we have tried to fatten our frames, and then look at
the bill of fare on the Coptic ! We exiles from Manila
have gained over five pounds in these eight days,

226 YESTEKDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

and would almost go through another two years in
the haunts of heathendom for the sake of again liv-
ing through a sundry few days like the past eight, in
which the inner man wakes up to see his opportuni-
ties, and makes up for lost time on soups that are not
all rice and water, on fish that is not fishy, on chickens
that are not boiled almost alive, on roasts that taste
not of garlic, on vegetables that are something more
than potatoes, on butter that is not axle-grease, and
on puddings and pies that are not made of chopped
blotting paper and flavored with pomatum sauces.

An exuberance of spirit must be forgiven, for so
welcome is the change from the old cultivated Manila
contentment that the present burst of native enthusi-
asm is but natural. Not that I am playing false to
the Malay capital — for let it be said that when once
you have forgotten the good things at home the ar-
ticles which that Pearl of the Orient had to furnish
went well enough indeed — but that after schooling
one's taste to things of low degree it is peculiarly
melodramatic to return to things of high estate.

Our send-off from Manila on the 14th was as gay
as the sad occasion could warrant, and several launch-
loads of the " bosses and the boys " worried out to
bid us a last adios. The Esmeralda was to have
the honor of taking us away from the place to
which she had brought us, and I was thoroughly

o

r

YESTEEDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 227

prepared to go through the interesting process that
was needed finally to straighten me out after the pe-
culiar twisting which the voyage from Manila to
Hong Kong had given me two years before.

The sunset over the mountains at the mouth of the
bay was eminently fitting in its concluding ceremo-
nies, and it seemed to do its best for us on this last
evening in the Philippines. The many ships in the
fleet lay quietly swinging at their anchors. The
breeze from the early northeast monsoon blew gently
off the shore, and Manila never looked fairer than she
did on that evening, with her white churches and
towers backed up against the tall blue velvet moun-
tains, and her whole long low-lying length lifted, as
it were, into mid-air by the smooth sea-mirror be-
tween us and the shore.

Captain Tayler was as jovial and entertaining as
ever, and the colony had no reason to regret being
participators in the farewell. We well realized that
our departure was an epoch in the life of the little
Anglo-Saxon colony, and in a city where important
events are registered as occurring " just after Smith
arrived " or " just before Jones went away," it was
essential to give the occasion weight enough to carry
it down into the weeks succeeding our departure.

Our native servants came off with the bags and
baggage and seemed to show as much feeling as they

228 YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

had ever exhibited in the receipt of a Christmas
present or a box on the ear. And some of our old
Chinese friends, from whom we bought bales and
bales of hemp in the days gone by, came too, bring-
ing with them presents of silk and tea. Everybody
looked sad and thirsty, and made frequent pilgrim-
ages to the saloon in quest of the usual good-by
stimulant.

The Esmeralda panted to get away, and we had
our last words with the motley little assemblage.
We were seeing Manila and the most of them for the
last time, and I confess both they and the shore
often looked gurgled up in the blur that somehow
formed in our eyes.

The sun sank below the horizon ; the swift dark-
ness that in the tropics hurries after it, brought the
electric lights' twinkling gleam out on the Luneta
and the long Malecon road running along in front of
the old city, from the promenade to the river. The
revolving light on the breakwater cast a red streak
over the river. The white eye on Corregidor, far
away, blinked as the night began, and, just as the
warning of " all ashore " was sounded, the faint
strains of the artillery band playing on the Luneta
floated out on the breeze over the sleepy waters of
the Bay.

Our friends clambered aboard the launch, the cus-

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 229

toms officers took a last taste of the refreshment that
Captain Tayler gives them to make them genial, the
anchor was hoisted, and, with cheers from the tug
and the screeching of launch-whistles, the Esmeralda
put to sea, bearing with her, in us two, half the
American colony in Manila and the only American
firm in the Philippines.

CONCLUSION

IF one has thoughts of going out to the Philippines
he should learn how to speak Spanish, and how to
accept, " cum grano salis," descriptions of the coun-
try, either too glowing or too gloomy. Some have
gone to Manila and liked it, others have made their
retreat homeward echo with tales of weary woe about
this Malay capital. To each it seems to mean some-
thing different according as he kept his health or lost
it, as he fell in with the life or didn't, and as he was
successful or unsuccessful in that for which he left the
upper side of the globe. Before buying one's ticket
for the Far East one must not be moved by the sugges-
tions of " thoughtful " persons, who say you are going
to the ends of the earth and must therefore take all
sorts of clothes, pianos, and means of subsistence.
Accept their sympathy but not always their advice,
and if Manila be your destination, be assured you are
not bound for an altogether isolated village. They
may do some things out there which are not down
on the programme of a day's routine in the United

States. The fire-engines may be drawn by oxen, the

230

YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 231

natives — contrary to Biblical suggestion — may build
the roof to their shanties first and make arrangements
for underpinning afterward ; women may smoke
cigars, and snakes may be more effective rat-catchers
than cats or terriers. But there are shops in Manila,
tailors, drug-stores, parks, tramways, churches, elec-
tric lights, schools, and theatres which are not alto-
gether unlike those in the Western world.

And, in times of peace, the capital is not an alto-
gether bad sort of a place to live in, though I can't
say as much for some of the lesser towns. One may
be susceptible to fever, in which case he must avoid
sleeping near the ground or going about much in the
sun. He may suffer from prickly heat, in which
case he will not want to take oatmeal, drink choco-
late, eat mangoes, or smoke pipes. Or he may be-
come a mark for sprue — that peculiarly oriental
disease which seems to destroy the lining to one's
interior — in which case the quicker he takes the
steamer for Japan or for 'Frisco the better. He
may run against small-pox, but ought not to take it.
He will have a cold or two, but won't hear of cholera
or find a native word for yellow fever. Should the
wind strike in from the northwest during the wet sea-
son, he must look out for typhoons, and not be sur-
prised if, like my friend the Englishman, he some
day finds only his upright piano on the spot where his

232 YESTEKDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES

light-built house stood — the rest of his things having
hastened to the next village. If he feels the ground
getting restless he must look out for the oil lamps on
the table, or the tiles on the roof. He must not take
too cold baths, sleep in silk pajamas, or walk when he
has the " peseta " to ride. And in all things he will
be better off by remembering to apply that motto of
the ancient Greeks, jjw)8ev wyav — in nothing to excess.
Manila is the new Mecca, and for some time to come
she is going to be looked at on the map, talked about
at the dinner-table and by the fireside, and written
up from all quarters. At present this Pearl of the
Orient is but a jewel in the rough, but with good
men to make her laws, and her gates wide open to
the pilgrims of the world, she soon should shine as
brilliantly as any city in the Far East.

? -^n-^Si t M^ ? S-i* * 32 I

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